How India's Cold Start is Turning the Heat on Pakistan

by Rakesh Krishnan Simha

December 26, 2010

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Pakistan's army generals are known to walk with a swagger. They have reason to. After all, they have been ruling the country of over 200 million people like their personal fiefdom for over half a century. Also, they are in an exclusive club of one - Pakistan is the only Islamic country that possesses nuclear weapons. (Just don't bring up the fact that these generals have lost four wars against India.) So why are they suddenly squirming after Wikileaks hit the ceiling?

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According to a leaked cable, more than the al-Qaida, American drones or a hostile Afghan government, what is scaring the living daylights out of the Pakistani generals is Cold Start - India's version of blitzkrieg. So deeply does it dread this new war fighting strategy that the Pakistani military has cranked up its production of nuclear weapons, sparking a nuclear arms race in the region.

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COMBATING STATUS QUO

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So what exactly is Cold Start and how is it changing the military equation in this part of the world? Will this new doctrine of war offer India more options in combating Pakistani adventurism and rolling back Islamic terrorism? Or will it contribute to more regional instability?

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To get the subcontinental drift, one has to look at the Pakistani military mindset. Each of the four wars - in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999 - was launched by the Pakistani military which factored in two key elements. Firstly, despite their 0-4 record against India, it is ingrained in the Pakistani military that a Pakistani soldier is equal to 10 Indian soldiers, and therefore India's defenses should quickly collapse. There was also the bizarre belief - eerily still a serious consideration at the highest echelons of Pakistani military decision making - that divine intervention will be a decisive factor in India's defeat.

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Secondly, Pakistan knows if its military thrusts fail, its patrons, the US and China, can be relied upon to bring in the United Nations, work the diplomatic back channels, get the world media to raise the alarm, and issue veiled threats, bringing pressure upon India to call off its counterattack.

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INDIA: LUMBERING GIANT

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Now the whole jing-bang of India's military strategy is that after the defending corps halt Pakistan's armored thrusts, the elite strike corps will roll towards the border, penetrate deep into Pakistani territory to destroy the Pakistan Army through massive tanks thrusts and artillery barrages, supported by round the clock aerial bombing of military targets.

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Sounds like a bullet-proof strategy. But in reality that has never happened because India's mighty military machine has the agility of an elephant on tranquilizers. Its strike corps are based in central India, a significant distance from the international border. It takes anywhere from two to three weeks for these three elite armies to reach the front.

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Because of the long mobilization period, the intervention of Western nations and the truce-happy nature of India's political leadership, India's military brass could not use their strike forces in three of the four wars.

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THE NEED FOR SPEED

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This is, of course, what Cold Start is intended to avoid. According to Dr Subhash Kapila, an international relations and strategic affairs analyst at the South Asia Analysis Group, Cold Start is designed to seize the initiative and finish the war before India's political leadership loses its nerve.

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"Long mobilization time gives the political leadership in India time to waver under pressure, and in the process deny the Indian Army its due military victories," says Dr Kapila. "The new war doctrine would compel the political leadership to give political approval "ab-initio' and thereby free the armed forces to generate their full combat potential from the outset."

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The crux of Cold Start is this:

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* Strike corps won't be allowed to languish in the hinterland. There will be eight "Battle Groups", comprising independent armoured and mechanised brigades that would launch counterattacks within hours.

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* These Battle Groups will be fully integrated with the Indian Air Force and naval aviation, and launch multiple strikes into Pakistan.

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* Each Battle Group will be the size of a division and highly mobile unlike the lumbering giants, the strike corps.

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* And ominously for Pakistan, the Battle Groups will be moved well forward from existing garrisons. India's strike forces will no longer sit idle waiting for the opportune moment, which never came in the last wars.

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CORNERING PAKISTAN

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In a paper on Cold Start, Walter C. Ladwig of Oxford University writes, "As the Indian military enhances its ability to implement Cold Start, it is simultaneously degrading the chance that diplomacy could diffuse a crisis on the subcontinent. In a future emergency, the international community may find the Battle Groups on the road to Lahore before anyone in Washington, Brussels, or Beijing has the chance to act."

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Cold Start is also aimed at paralysing Pakistani response. Although the operational details of Cold Start remain classified, it appears that the goal would be to have three to five Battle Groups entering Pakistani territory within 72 to 96 hours from the time the order to mobilize is issued.

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"Only such simultaneity of operations will unhinge the enemy, break his cohesion, and paralyze him into making mistakes from which he will not be able to recover," says Gurmeet Kanwal of India's Centre for Land Warfare Studies.

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Agrees Ladwig: "Multiple divisions operating independently have the potential to disrupt or incapacitate the Pakistani leadership's decision making cycle, as happened to the French high command in the face of the German blitzkrieg of 1940."

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Also, rather than seek to deliver a catastrophic blow to Pakistan (i.e., cutting the country in two), the goal of Indian military operations would be to make shallow territorial gains, 50-80 km deep, that could be used in post-conflict negotiations to extract concessions from Islamabad.

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Where the strike corps had the power to deliver a knockout blow, the division-sized Battle Groups can only "bite and hold" territory. This denies Pakistan the "regime survival" justification for employing nuclear weapons in response to India's conventional attack.

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CALLING THE NUCLEAR BLUFF

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To be sure, Pakistan has declared it has a very low nuclear threshold - that is Islamabad will launch nuclear strikes against India when a significant portion of its territory has been captured or is likely to be captured, or the Pakistani military machine suffers heavy losses.

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But this is just a myth - perpetuated and planted by US academia and think tanks, and is probably officially inspired. For, it suits the needs of the conservative American establishment in whose eyes India is a long-term rival and Pakistan a useful, if unreliable, ally. Unfortunately, India's political leadership and its uncritical media have been brainwashed into believing that Cold Start has apocalyptic consequences.

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But "nuclear warfare is not a commando raid or commando operation with which Pakistan is more familiar," says Dr Kapila. "Crossing the nuclear threshold is so fateful a decision that even strong American Presidents in the past have baulked at exercising it."

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Indeed, Pakistan cannot expect India would sit idle and suffer a Pakistani nuclear strike without a massive nuclear retaliation, which would be the end of the Pakistan story.

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PAKISTAN'S OPTIONS

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So where does that leave Pakistan? The wayward country is faced with the cold reality that India is prepared to undertake offensive operations against Pakistan without giving it time to bring diplomatic leverages into play.

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Since India has declared that it will not resort to a nuclear first strike, the onus is squarely on Pakistan and its patrons. A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan has the potential to spiral out of control, sucking in China, the US, the Islamic countries and Russia. That would send the price of oil skyrocketing and cause a worldwide economic crisis.

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Therefore, "a nuclear conflict will take place in South Asia only if the United States wants it and lets Pakistan permissively cross the nuclear threshold," says Dr Kapila.

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Ralph Peters, the author of Looking for Trouble, and a strategic analyst for Fox News, agrees that the US needs to consider an alternative approach to handling "splintering, renegade" Pakistan. "Let India deal with Pakistan. Pakistan would have to behave responsibly at last. Or face nuclear-armed India. And Pakistan's leaders know full well that a nuclear exchange would leave their country a wasteland. India would dust itself off and move on," observes Peters.

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COLD SHOULDER BY INDIA'S POLITICIANS

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To be sure, Cold Start, though it has been war gamed five times, lacks consensus in India. That is mainly because the country's political leadership lacks the nerve to implement a strategy that could possibly lead to nuclear war. But that is precisely why India's generals brought it into the public realm. Cold Start was devised to end the standoff in the subcontinent. Pakistan cannot be allowed to export terror and brandish its nuclear weapons at India, ad infinitum.

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THE ULTIMATE WEAPON?

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The beauty of Cold Start is that it may never have to be used because it calls Pakistan's nuclear bluff at the outset, which is perhaps why the Pakistani generals are so agitated. Indeed, why should they be troubled at all if the Indian Army is saying goodbye to its old strategy of breaking up Pakistan?

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Ultimately, Cold Start may prove to be the Brahmastra - the Hindu God Brahma's doomsday weapon, never to be used but which keeps the enemy in perpetual shock and awe. India's military brass has come up with a solution for taming Pakistan; it is now up to the political leadership to bite the bullet, and the world to back it. As ancient India's master of statecraft Chanakya wrote in the Arthashastra 2300 years ago:

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The antidote of poison is poison, not nectar,
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The vicious are deaf to entreaties gentle,
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Meet the enemy on his own terms
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And batter his pretentions to dust.
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Rakesh Krishnan Simha is a features writer at Fairfax, New Zealand.

United States conducted its own secret analysis of India's military contingency plans

"Que Sera Sera".
'India's Cold Start Plan may Never be used on Pak'
.Last updated on: December 1, 2010 13:11 IST
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http://www.rediff.com/news/slide-show/slide-show-1-us-analysed-indian-army-contingency-plans-wikileaks/20101201.htm

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American embassy cables leaked by whistleblower website WikiLeaks reveal that the United States conducted its own secret analysis of India's military contingency plans codenamed 'Cold Start', the Guardian reported.

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"It is the collective judgment of the mission that India would likely encounter very mixed results. Indian forces could have significant problems consolidating initial gains due to logistical difficulties and slow reinforcement," according to an American cable. But the US ambassador to India, Tim Roemer warned in February that for India to launch Cold Start, would be to "roll the nuclear dice". It could trigger the world's first use of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Roemer further said that the implementation of Indian army's Cold Start doctrine, which lacks consensus in India and has not been fully embraced by the Manmohan Singh government, is likely to yield "mixed results" if put to use under present circumstances, the cable said.

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"The Indian army's 'Cold Start Doctrine' is a mixture of myth and reality. It has never been and may never be put to use on a battlefield because of substantial and serious resource constraints, but it is a developed operational attack plan announced in 2004 and intended to be taken off the shelf and implemented within a 72-hour period during a crisis. "Cold Start is not a plan for a comprehensive invasion and occupation of Pakistan," said the US cable, dated February 16 and signed off by Roemer. "Instead, it calls for a rapid, time and distance- limited penetration into Pakistani territory with the goal of quickly punishing Pakistan, possibly in response to a Pakistan-linked terrorist attack in India, without threatening the survival of the Pakistani state or provoking a nuclear response," it said.

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"It was announced by the BJP-led government in 2004, but the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not publicly embraced Cold Start and GOI's uncertainty over Pakistani nuclear restraint may inhibit future implementation by any government," it said, adding that if the Indian government were to implement Cold Start given present Indian military capabilities, it is the collective judgment of the US mission that India would encounter mixed results.

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"The GOI failed to implement Cold Start in the wake of the audacious November 2008 Pakistan-linked terror attack in Mumbai, which calls into question the willingness of the GOI to implement Cold Start in any form and thus roll the nuclear dice." "At the same time, the existence of the plan reassures the Indian public and may provide some limited deterrent effect on Pakistan," the cable said.

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"We think that the November 2008 Pakistan-linked terror attack in Mumbai and its immediate aftermath provide insight into Indian and Pakistani thinking on Cold Start. "First, the GOI refrained from implementing Cold Start even after an attack as audacious and bloody as the Mumbai attack, which calls into serious question the GOI's willingness to actually adopt the Cold Start option," it said. "Second, the Pakistanis have known about Cold Start since 2004, but this knowledge does not seem to have prompted them to prevent terror attacks against India to extent such attacks could be controlled. This fact calls into question Cold Start's ability to deter Pakistani mischief inside India," it said.

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"Even more so, it calls into question the degree of sincerity of fear over Cold Start as expressed by Pakistani military leaders to USG officials. Cold Start is not India's only or preferred option after a terrorist attack." Depending on the nature, location, lethality, public response, and timing of a terrorist attack, India might not respond at all or could pursue one of several other possible options, it said. "Finally, several very high level GOI officials have firmly stated, when asked directly about their support for Cold Start, that they have never endorsed, supported, or advocated for this doctrine. One of these officials is former National Security Advisor M K Narayanan, who has recently been replaced. While the army may remain committed to the goals of the doctrine, political support is less clear," the cable said.

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The cable said Indian leaders realise that, although Cold Start is designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering a nuclear response, they cant be sure whether Pakistani leaders will in fact refrain from such a response. "Even in the absence of a Pakistani nuclear response, GOI leaders are aware also that even a limited Indian incursion into Pakistan will likely lead to international condemnation of Indian action and a resulting loss of the moral high ground that GOI leaders believe India enjoys in its contentious relationship with Pakistan," it said. According to the cable, the Indian governments intent to ever actually implement Cold Start is very much an open question.

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"The Cold Start doctrine was announced in April 2004 by the BJP-led government that was replaced shortly thereafter by the Manmohan Singh government, which has not since publicly embraced Cold Start," it said. "A political green-light to implement Cold Start, fraught as it is with potential nuclear consequences, would involve a highly opaque decision-making process and would likely necessitate broad political consensus, a factor that could prolong the time between a precipitating event such as a Pakistan-linked terror attack and Cold Start deployment (which in turn could reduce the element of surprise)," it said.

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A senior US intelligence official was "unrelentingly gloomy" about Pakistan.

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Peter Lavoy, national intelligence officer for south Asia, concluded in November 2008 that nuclear-armed Pakistan's economy was "in tatters" and the country could "completely lose control of its Pashtun territories over the next few years", according to a leaked US cable. More than a third of people were unemployed or underemployed, he said. "Pakistan's population is becoming less and less educated, the country lacks sufficient energy and clean water resources to serve its population, and there is minimal foreign investment." A few months later, in April 2009, US official Patterson was slightly less gloomy, saying Pakistan was not a "failed state". "We nonetheless recognise that the challenges it confronts are dire. The government is losing more and more territory every day to foreign and domestic militant groups; deteriorating law and order in turn is undermining economic recovery. "The bureaucracy is settling into third-world mediocrity, as demonstrated by some corruption and a limited capacity to implement or articulate policy." She said: "Extremism... is no longer restricted to the border area. We are seeing young Punjabi men turn up in (the tribal areas) and Afghanistan as fighters recruited from areas of southern Punjab where poverty, illiteracy and despair create a breeding ground for extremism."

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The United States has deployed nearly 200 tactical nuclear weapons across Europe, particularly in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Turkey, leaked cables from whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks have revealed. While the international community has long suspected that the US has warheads remaining in Europe, the locations of the bombs have never been revealed -- until now. A cable, sent from Berlin, details discussions last year in which US Assistant Secretary of State, Philip Gordon talks to Germany's foreign policy adviser Christoph Heusgen about weapons in the four countries."Heusgen said that from his perspective, it made no sense to unilaterally withdraw 'the 20' tactical nuclear weapons still in Germany while Russia maintains 'thousands' of them," the Daily Express quoted the cable as saying.

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The cable adds that former British Premier Gordon Brown noted it was important to think through all "potential consequences" of withdrawing the weapons from Germany -- "for example, a withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany and perhaps from Belgium and the Netherlands could make it very difficult politically for Turkey to maintain its stockpile..."Another leaked cable details a January 2009 meeting between the US and Dutch embassy officials and Prince Turki Al-Kabeer, an official in Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during which Iran's nuclear programme was discussed. The missive says: "Prince Turki warned that if Iran tried to produce nuclear weapons other countries in the Gulf would be compelled to do the same or permit the stationing of nuclear weapons as a deterrent."

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The latest cache of WikiLeaks lays bare the deep concern of the US over the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and the fact that Islamabad is producing them at a "faster rate than any other country in the world".

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Painting a damning picture of its "ally", American officials expressed serious misgivings about the possibility of elements within the Pakistan establishment smuggling enough material out to eventually make a rogue nuclear weapon. The Pakistan-focussed cache of US embassy cables published by The Guardian reveal American and British diplomats fear that Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme could lead to fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists or a devastating nuclear exchange with India.

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We have 2G, CWG, Adarsh, Niira Radia, Lavasa, CVC Thomas, BS Ydiurappa etc as deterrants.