This "doctrine" is part of a growing potential nuclear problem:
Gen. Bipin Rawat, chief of the Indian army, announced last Thursday that the military is launching war games next month to test "structures geared towards sudden and swift offensives into enemy territory by ‘integrated battle groups,' or IBGs, reported Ajai Shukla, an Indian journalist and former army colonel. These new structures will be "validated" in military exercises on the ground in May.
Rawat's comments are sure to raise eyebrows in Pakistan, because the proposed IBGs are central to India's offensive military doctrine known as "Cold Start," an attack plan that involves a quick, limited penetration into Pakistan, rather than a more ambitious invasion and occupation. The operation would be implemented in a crisis, likely in response to a large-scale terrorist attack that India believes is tied to Pakistan.
If you've been reading The Dignified Rant, Cold Start is nothing new to you, since I first wrote about the doctrine and the danger of nuclear escalation back in 2006.
Further, it isn't just weaker Pakistan that might start a nuclear war. Either India or Pakistan could be the side that initiates nuclear weapons use given that India looks at China as their main enemy these days and might not want to look weak if Pakistan gains the edge in a conventional war.
And the IBGs have been discussed for quite some time.
In some sense, Cold Start made sense. With both sided having nukes, you need to deny an enemy short-term gains that can be locked into place with a ceasefire (or lock in your own gains).
India seems to be refining it to mean a short, limited war but given the ambiguity of determining intent when India's army gets the capability to execute a "bolt from the blue" conventional invasion without time-consuming and visible mobilization, how will Pakistan react? How will Pakistan know that a broad offensive is shallow rather than having lots of forces in reserve to punch through at one or two points when Pakistan is full engaged across their entire border?
Further, it is dangerous that the Indian military doctrine essentially aims to achieve something before their own government can rein them in before achieving a military objective.
And really, by spreading out forces India will just deny their own military the chance to achieve something decisive. Concentration is a thing of the past, apparently, in defiance of countless centuries' of military experience. I understand that the Indian military wants options other than to fight on a narrow front that Pakistan chooses, like in the 1999 Kargil War. But it would be nice if India sees the IBG as a means of providing an alternative rather than initiating a broad-front invasion--even if it is intended to achieve shallow penetrations of the border.
On the nuclear issue, America should really be sharing our experience with Cold War nuclear deterrence to make sure each side understands our experience and don't tread the same dangerous ground to rediscover the wheel. Although there is danger there if Pakistan decides they are the side most likely to follow the USSR's path which finally ended the Cold War with the elimination of one side.
UPDATE: India's developing policy might not matter if Pakistan wasn't walking around with a "kick me" sign that they placed on their own back:
The Pakistani military continues to suppress local Islamic terrorist violence while increasing it in Afghanistan and India. The Afghanistan meddling is relatively risk free while the violence against India is becoming increasingly dangerous. India has nukes, a much larger economy and a vibrant democracy that is demanding action against the Pakistani attacks.
Of course, relatively risk free sponsorship of jihadis in Afghanistan risks America washing its hands of Pakistan if we get a line of supply to Afghanistan through a friendly Iran and decide we don't want to shield Pakistan because of our increasingly close relationship with India.
What does "smart diplomacy" translate to in Islamabad, anyway?
