ali ahmed
Ali Ahmed, Phd (JNU), PhD (Cantab), is author of India's Doctrine Puzzle: Limiting War in South Asia (Routledge 2014). He has been an infantryman, an academic and an international civil servant. His books of commentaries/articles can be downloaded here and at blog www.ali-writings.blogspot.in, www.subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in. Tweets @aliahd66. Ali's Version: https://aliahd66.substack.com/
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This e-book’s contents date to when I was in uniform, either in regimental service as a middle piece officer of the Light Infantry and in the Rashtriya Rifles or in extra-regimental assignments elsewhere in the junior echelon of service. The period straddles the turn of the century, with the commentaries written sometime between 1995-2005 or so. The book is thus a good snapshot of the army at the time, a worm’s eye view as it were.
I had a somewhat unique vantage point, having done a War Studies course on study leave somewhat early in service. I thought that the course provided me some insight which made my viewing the Service somewhat different from the perspective of my colleagues in traditional career paths. I therefore believed that communicating these observations to the Service was an obligation, for having spared me for undertaking the course.
While I have inserted a few articles that did see the light of day in Service publications, majority of the pieces here were not so lucky. Some of these were written as observations on contents of Service periodicals – such as the part in this book on Letters to Editor. Others were as responses to in-Service essay competitions – sent with no intention of winning, but only to make a point as contribution to Service thinking. Some were contrarion, but only constructively so.
The articles cover War and Insurgency, the primary preoccupation of the Army in my time and carried in successive sections here. The Punjab and Sri Lankan engagements in the eighties – both of which I saw as a foot slogger – and the extensive commitments in the nineties in Kashmir and Assam - both of which provided locales for jungle bashing and my claim to have soldiered once. The tussle was between votaries of the hard and softline, with me lining up with the latter and fleshing out the Ashokan tradition in Indian strategic thought on the intellectual frontlines within the Service. These writings are part of the second section, on Insurgency, in this ebook.
As backdrop, was the discussion on how to keep the conventional deterrent honed, to keep the subconventional challenge manageable. India dramatically came up with a nuclear answer to this. At the time of writing, this answer was deflated by Pakistan’s upping of the subconventional ante. The professional concerns nuclearization generated energised a small debate within the Service. I lent shoulder to the less popular – though to my mind more sober and mature – strategic alternative by overlaying the Limited War theory on the emerging strategic equation in South Asia. The output is carried in the section on War in this ebook.
Admittedly, some of the impulse behind articles collated here in the Military Sociology part, was grouching, no more than the usual survival strategy of infantrymen. But it was also informed by my learning – admittedly somewhat immodestly put – from my elective ‘Armed Forces and Society’ at the bespoke course. It discusses not only higher order matters as civil-military relations but also the military’s relationship with its mandate, officership and the military as a calling.
A significant aspect of historical interest is in the Letters to Editor pages here. The Letters to Editors were written in response to articles carried on their publication’s pages. These letters usually queried the insertion of Hindutva world view into the professional consciousness using the pages of in-Service journals by officer purveyors. This is in the period of the right-wing government’s first stint in power. It is easy to see how ideological entrepreneurs in uniform used Service conduits to infiltrate Hindutva into the military. At the time they were still in the closet. Editorial inattention allowed for Hindutva discourse to be normalised in the Service. I think this was at the cost of professionalism. The Letters provide a glimpse of Hindutva’s early infiltration into military innards.
I have put in a section on Book Reviews, for in-Service readers. Reading is a habit that is advocated for officers, though increasingly they are not from the catchment of reading public. Besides, service life is apparently considerably busier these days, than was in my time. The idea is to encourage reading, which is ambitious these days and, on that count, inescapable – especially for upwardly mobile officers.
This book owes to the latitude extended to me by my Commanding Officers – for no reasons I was privy to (though I suspect it was to keep me far from the Adjutant’s chair). I have benefited from their stewardship of my time in Service. I used the time to engage with issues way outside my pay grade, as a hobby for most part.
This collection of in-Service reflection is in part testimony of intellectual concerns of officers of my generation. Put out by an atypical officer, there is no claim to any consensus on the thoughts expressed. I take full responsibility for deficits. The hope is that when some military historian or researcher wishes to understand the Service of the turn of the century, she would find here an enlightening page or two.
As India goes into election year, it is important to foreground national security. National security is seldom a concern with voters, who understandably have other significant concerns. However, the last time round, the Narendra Modi government, fearful of not addressing the latter concerns, had instead chosen to leverage national security to get another lease of life. Though it has other rabbits to pull out of its hat to pull off a Modi hattrick of elections at the national level, national security may yet be one among them.
This collection of commentaries is to help voters be more discerning when the Modi regime approaches it for votes claiming to have safeguarded national security or for being strong on defence. The commentaries reveal that this to be the Big Lie, fed to Indian voters since the run up to the 2014 elections. Voters, targeted with incessant information operations since, have granted the regime the benefit of the doubt. This compilation may help with a perspective other than what they are fed with by agents of the regime in the strategic community and by the lapdog media. It aims to furnish relevant information and fleshes out fresh and original takes on national security. Hope it helps The Indian Voter, to whom this ebook is dedicated to exercise her democratic right of informed franchise better.
The book carries articles from September 2022 onwards, the prior series of articles, from March 2022, being carried in my last compilation: India’s Journey to #NewIndia: Through an Ashokan Lens. India’s Journey comprised the first 35 posts on Ali’s Version, my corner at Substack, beginning March 2022. This book carries the posts put out later, and writings elsewhere since September 2022. It is structured in three parts: The National Domain, The Military Domain and Generic Writings. It completes coverage of national security over the past year, enough to take a view on where we’ve come from and where we are headed on this score.
Hindutva dominance of political culture has implications for strategic culture. The muscular image of New India is belied by India’s rather timid response to the challenge of China. Strategic culture is not quite what it’s made out to be by regime apologists.
The finding on these pages is that India’s war avoidance strategy - amouting to appeasement - springs not from strategic factors – as asymmetry in comprehensive national power as some might have it – but a political need not to rock the ship of State as it transits from New India to Hindu Rastra. Consolidation of Hindutva is sought, otherwise liable to be truncated by strategic setback.
Therefore, the regime’s grand strategy is introspective. It is driven not by national interest conventionally defined but by Hindutva taken as the national interest. Thus, India’s strategy prongs – such as its military’s posturing, nuclear deterrence, approach to Kashmir and towards its largest minority - must be seen accordingly.
The implications for the military of this political shift have been dealt with piecemeal in strategic commentary. The Agnipath scheme, the beginnings of a cultural reset and leaving the Services rudderless show how Hindutva is whittling the military. To the regime, the military’s organisational cultural tumult is future insurance against a military pushback provoked by a Constitutional coup ushering in a Second – Hindutva-inspired - Republic.
The year has provided a turbulent backdrop in the thrust for a reshaping of the West ordained ‘world order’ by Russia, aligned with China. India has used the distraction of a conventional war in Europe - and the renewed global appreciation of its geo-strategic location - for its ends: limiting attention to its journey towards being an ethnic quasi-democracy.
These aspects of the strategic scene are captured in respective parts in this e-book: political, grand strategy, strategy, military sociology, Muslim India and global affairs. Over the past six months (March-September 2022), the 35 commentaries here figured as Substack posts on Ali’s Version. Collectively, they constitute a liberal critique of India’s journey to Hindu Rashtra.
Since the governing mechanism of the state is made up of agencies of the state, the action and interaction of these are important in strategic assessment. To ignore this aspect is to the detriment of the credibility and robustness of analysis. It is with this premise that this project approaches the issue it deals with, in the expectation that doing so would be a positive contribution to strategic thinking. To this end the paper brings to bear the insights derived from the study of foreign policy analysis in international relations theory to the Indian context.
The understanding is that marginalized perspectives have their merit and require attention. The nature of strategic analysis being interdisciplinary, it is necessary to input connected aspects of sociology, psychology, and the management sciences into the fiercely defended terrain - that of strategic policy and decision-making. Its policy relevance springs from creating sensitivity to the issues so raised, thereby enabling their being factored into strategic calculus. Its academic relevance is in the study straddling the disciplines of strategy, sociology and foreign policy analysis.
The academic argument is that institutional interests have a substantial bearing on policy formulation and decision-making. These interests are intrinsic to institutions by virtue of being institutions. Thus, there is a corresponding influence on objectivity. The Indian context, in which this feature is analyzed, has interesting conclusions. It emerges that the peculiarity of the Indian setting is that institutional interest-based momentum enables/forecloses policy options, the worth of which is more on account of their political utility rather than some mystical yardstick of rationality/objectivity.
A fresh perspective does emerge when the thesis above is taken as backdrop on the two case studies discussed, namely on the story of Indian nuclearistion and on the pacification effort in Kashmir. Since both have been central to Indian security considerations over the past decade, and are likely to remain so over the forth-coming one, they are topical, and deserving of a specialized non-traditional scrutiny. The conclusions with regard to these individually, and their reinforcing influence on the study’s mainstream conclusions, bring into the picture the non-conventional perspective forcefully enough to deserve a compelling relook. The high-ground appropriated by the established narrative is thus sought to be challenged - the intent being to bring democratic debate back into the areas otherwise considered sanitized of politics by the dominant perspective.
The aim of the project is to examine the nature and impact of institutional interest on security policy and decision-making in the Indian setting. The paper first undertakes a theoretical survey of the institutional dynamics in the national security field, and thereafter witnesses these more intimately in the two case studies. The conclusion is that institutions are major players. Consequently there is a premium on political control. Since such control is itself subject to the interests of political parties and forces, it is imperative that means and measures for the same be studied, debated and instituted. The point is that security is too serious a business to be left entirely to those whose business it is or to those who make it their business.
Foreword
I dedicate this book to believers in Islam. I write of their security predicament in India. I make the case that they have been short-changed by this secular, democratic republic. And this is not only on the time of the current regime in power. It dates back at least thirty years when a virus worse than corona inserted itself into the body politic of this nation. Today, the regime in power is a product and at a grave national security cost.
The regime has taken power on the back of a Big Lie. It has manufactured the perception of an internal security threat by projecting the largest minority anywhere in the world as one. It has ridden the coat tails of the Islamophobia prevalent abroad. It has presented the Indian Muslim as the Other to build up its vote bank based on Hindus. It has subverted national institutions; thus, even when it was not in power, it was in a position to paralyse the government from within. Now that it in power it is in a position to saffronise at will. This explains the dedication in that saffronsisation is a threat to the safety and well being of India’s Muslims.
I have followed the left-liberal thesis on the right wing ascendance in India. I have seen at first hand the influence of the right wing ideology in the military and within the strategic community. I have recorded this in my writings elsewhere. Here I have put together some of the writings that directly deal with the Indian Muslim security predicament. Since I have covered Kashmir in another book, I have not included the travails of Kashmiris here.
In the process of putting this compilation of writings that have appeared at various websites, I have concluded that it is possible to arrive at a security perspective unique for a minority. While usually national security is taken as indivisible, it is not so in reality. If the state is appropriated by parochial interests, such as of the right wing in India’s case, then the minority at the receiving end has to consider its own security by its own lights.
From a reading of this book, it is possible to conceptualise, that where the state is captured by particularist interests, its usage of instruments at its command constitutes a threat to the minority. This is an important finding from a reading of this book, making the compilation a significant one not only for India’s Muslims, but for the national security establishment, strategic community and the attentive public.
I thank the publications in which these 76 articles and commentaries have appeared (milligazette.in; thecitizen.in; ipcs.org; countercurrents.org; kashmirtimes.com; indiatogether.org etc). The first one in the compilation did not find any publisher. I trust readers will find the compilation that covers the last fifteen years offering a different, if not a unique, perspective.
I hope it is read also by Hindu friends so that they can see for themselves the premier internal security threat to India stems from the right wing regime’s subversion of democracy and by its supportive formations that want to use their sway in power to fashion a Hindu India. With the hope they bestir to reclaim the republic.
The book is my modest contribution to my community and to my nation of which my community is part. My gratitude to my wider family that inspired the book.
However, there has been no change in the official nuclear doctrine of India over the past decade and half. This is puzzling, reflecting as it does either a deficit in nuclear learning or that even as India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine remains stagnant overtly and nuclear doctrinal change has been kept outside the open domain. Nuclear ambiguity has overtaken India’s nuclear doctrinal glasnost of the turn of the century. In this chapter, nuclear opacity (Prakash 2014, 6-7) notwithstanding, the finding is that India’s official nuclear doctrine of 2003 stands superseded in light of doctrinal innovation. There is apparently a move towards a warfighting nuclear doctrine and posture, albeit one to cover the deterrence deficit identified. Since secrecy attends India’s operational doctrine (Kampani 2014), a definitive answer is precluded. This is reason enough to interrogate India’s nuclear doctrine.
Keywords: Indian military; military sociology; Hindutva; military professionalism; civilmilitary relations; Indian politics.
A perusal of the collected works comprising close to a 1000 published pieces of varying length, over 4000 pages and some two million words, needs summarizing. The aim is to bring out the underlying unity to the whole. The work has been informed by the peculiar and unique vantage points in my journey. My academic background has enriched the reflection, distinguishing my work from that of other practitioners in that it is a combination of learning and experience. The analytical tools acquired by me while at the DSSC, at the military intelligence course, at the New Delhi think tank and as a UN political analyst with its mission analysis qualification, have been put to good use.
A quarter century of extensive engagement with the strategic discussion in India finds expression in the collection. Not only did I feed into the discussion, but my thinking was enhanced by it. My writings enabled the strategic discussion (if not cacophony) to be taken further and in the
dissemination of the content to an attentive audience, initially within the military, and over the past decade - after I left the military - to an interested public through writing on the web and compiling the collections in two blogs: www.ali-writings.blogspot.in and http://subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.com/.
In the period, India emerged as a reckonable power, with an expanding economic and strategic footprint. There was a growing interest in matters of national security among the educated, middle classes. Consequently, there was much to engage with and write about, particularly off the mainstream track. My contributions are at the interstices of international relations, strategy, military sociology and the political backdrop to internal security.
In this book compilation I have put together my book chapter contributions to various edited
publications in order to get the perspectives presented under one set of covers. Taken together,
they strengthen the liberal perspective in strategic studies. I have been in my writings that are
of shorter length, such as commentaries, opinion pieces and analysis, been a votary of the
liberal world view and have tried to make the liberal case when discussing issues in matters
of regional and national security. I have compiled the eight hundred and more such pieces in
eight other books. I have also put together my articles and essays published in peer reviewed
journals into a book. This book contains my chapter length works, tackling the same themes I
have engaged with consistently – nuclear and conventional doctrine; counter insurgency; India-
Pakistan equations; Kashmir etc.
I recommend these chapters be read alongside my other writings to gain a measure of why
and how the liberal position has advantages for a continental sized country like India and for
the South Asian region of which India is a major part. I trust the student community, academic
peers, fellow former practitioners, and interested readers in India and Pakistan, will find the
effort useful.
I thank the editors of various volumes in which these chapters were included for giving me an
opportunity to present my views. This shows they were already keen on the point of view finding
a place in their edited work, which is to their credit. It is befitting that the Asokan tradition stays
alive and well in India, that is otherwise inundated with writings drawing on and inspired by the
Chanakyan tradition.
I would like to thank the team at CinnamonTeal, lead by Queenie Fernandes, for her overseeing
the production into book for my many books with the publishing house.
I have dedicated this book to my son. I hope his generation benefits from any good coming out
of the book in terms of furthering peace and harmony in India and South Asia.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements 7
Indian Army’s Flagship Doctrines: Need for Strategic Guidance in Harsh Pant (ed.),
Doctrine Handbook, Routledge, 2015, ISBN-978-1-138-93960-8
9
Does India think Strategically? Searching Military Doctrines for Answers in
Happymon Jacob (ed.), Does India think strategically?, Australia-India Institute,
2014, ISBN 9350980398
26
Indian Strategic Culture the Pakistan Dimension in Indian Strategic Culture: The
Pakistan dimension in Krishnappa, Bajpai et al. (eds.), India’s Grand Strategy:
History, Theory, Cases, Taylor and Francis, 2014, ISBN-978-0-415-73965-8
50
India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stasis or Dynamism? in Brig. Naeem Salik (ed.)
(forthcoming), India’s Habituation With the Bomb - 1998-2018
71
The Nuclear Domain: In Irreverance in Mohammed BadrulAlam, Perspectives On
Nuclear Strategy Of India, And Pakistan, Kalpaz Publications, Delhi, India, 2013,
ISBN-9788178359632
93
Nuclear Doctrine and Conflict in Krishnappa and Princy George (eds.), India’s
Grand Strategy 2020 and Beyond, IDSA, Pentagon Security International, 2012,
ISBN-78-81-8274-657-2
112
AFSPA in Light of Humanitarian Law in Vivek Chadha, Armed Forces Special
Powers Act: The Debate, IDSA Monograph Series No. 7, 2012, ISBN-978-81-7095-
129-1
120
Countering Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir: Debates in the Indian Army in
Maroof Raza (ed.), Confronting Terrorism, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, ISBN-
978-0-670-08369-5
131
Applicability of Sub-Conventional Operations Doctrine to Counterinsurgency in
Assam in Bhattacharya, R. and S. Pulipaka (eds.), Perilous Journey : Debates on
Security and Development in Assam, New Delhi: Manohar, 2011, ISBN-978-81-
7304-904-0
152
UN Peacekeeping Operations: Leveraging India’s Forte in IDSA Task Force, Net
Security Provider: India’s Out-of-Area Contingency Operations, 2012, ISBN-978-
93-82512-00-4
173
India 2030: With History as Guide in Lele, A. and N. Goswami (eds.), Asia 2030:The
Unfolding Future, New Delhi: Lancer 2011, ISBN-1-935501-22-4
180
I have compiled my essays/articles in this book that have appeared in publications on strategic matters in South Asia. These include my writings for the illustrious Economic and Political Weekly as a strategic affairs columnist. I have a quarterly column, the submissions for which over the past three years have been included in this compilation. My writings while I was in the strategic community in New Delhi as part of the well-regarded think tank, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, are also part of this corpus. I contributed to its flagship publications, Strategic Analysis and Journal of Defence Studies. I have also put together my writings for the publications
of the Indian army’s Center for Land Warfare Studies – CLAWS Journal and Scholar Warrior - in this volume. I have included the issue briefs and policy papers I worked on for the think tanks in New Delhi, including IDSA and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. My web-publications for think tanks and websites covering strategic affairs and international relations are carried in my other eight self-published books of compilations.
I wanted to put these writings under one cover since they took considerable labour, from research, thinking and writing up. Taken together they make for a comprehensive coverage of the strategic field in South Asia over this century so far. The book is also a combative presentation of the liberal perspective in security and strategic studies. The essays together trace the regional trajectory through a difficult period, when nuclear war has always loomed large, in light of the inability of the states in the region – India, Pakistan and China – to resolve their outstanding issues. The essays are pitched at the various levels of war - political, strategic and operational.
The EPW contributions are largely at the political level, dealing with civil-military relations and national security. The ones in Strategic Analysis are pitched at the strategic level and deal in particular with the nuclear dimension. The issue briefs flesh out issues such as the place of human rights in counter insurgency. Some essays offer contrarian perspectives in the context of the times when the chime in the strategic community in India was largely orchestrated by the realists who predominate and set the agenda and discourse.
I trust the essays will prove relevant to the readers’ interests. Their contents are useful for those in national security studies, peace studies, strategic studies, public policy and international relations. Students, academics, practitioners and the attentive public will find them offering new, original and different insights from the run of the mill, if voluminous, work in strategic literature. I hope the readers would be able to see the embedded pattern in the work, of a call to peace through peaceful means.
Acknowledgements
I have put together in this volume my work that is under copyright of the publications it has appeared in. However, this book is not intended for sale or wide distribution, but to ensure that the collective body of my work appears at one place for access by those interested, including perhaps future researchers. I therefore must first acknowledge here the publications in which these essays have appeared in. Their periodic appearance was testimony of the editors’ and readers’ continuing interest in my work and output for which I am most grateful. It did keep me going as can be seen from the compilation covering some the past decade.
I must acknowledge my debt to the institutions at which I occupied academic perches for some five years in New Delhi, at the think tank IDSA and at the central university, Jamia Millia Islamia’s Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. My work there informed my thinking,
provided me with access to library and material and enabled my writings. Besides, while in New Delhi, my writings benefited from the research for my doctoral dissertation in international politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. It is a lifelong debt. I also used my off-duty time to continue my academic work and interests and must add that the output is solely personal and is of no relevance to any organization I have been associated with. Needless to add, I am alone responsible for shortcomings in the logic and presentation.
Lastly, but most significantly, my family must take any credit there is for persevering in tolerance of me and my authorial idiosyncracies.
AND THE IMPACT ON SAARC
ALI AHMED DISSERTATION FOR THE MSc IN DEFENCE AND STRATEGIC STUDIES AT THE DEFENCE SERVICES STAFF COLLEGE WELLINGTON, INDIA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, India has been in the vortex of change. The old order, based on socialism and pluralism, has been under redefinition. The ascendant ideas are economic liberalization and cultural nationalism. This socio-political tumult has had echo in Indian strategic discourse. The premier contending philosophies in this discourse can be labeled liberal-rationalism and conservative-realism. Currently, the ‘pro-active’ strategic stance of India is reflective of the dominance of the latter in Indian strategic thought.
It being the pivotal state in the South Asian region, India’s strategic orientation is central to the prospects of regional cooperation. Any growth in regional cooperation, as represented by the continued evolution of the regional body, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), is dependant, in part, to Indian initiative in this regard. This initiative is more likely to be the outcome of adoption of a liberal-rationalist position by India in the field of national security – it being the perspective most compatible with regional cooperation.
Aim. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the contending philosophies in India on the prospects for regional cooperation. Since both have diverse assumptions, contentions, and prescriptions, the likely outcomes are dissimilar.
Necessity. Such an investigation is necessitated by the manner in which regional cooperation has been held hostage to adversarial Indo-Pakistani equations. Being the major states in the region, their relationship has naturally been central to the prospects of any regional initiative. A liberal-rationalist posture on the part of India would give rise to accommodationist measures that could restore the health of these relations. The fallout would be on a reenergized SAARC that would be of immense benefit to the billion and half inhabitants of the subcontinent.
UN PEACEKEEPING AND MILITARY DOCTRINE
by Ali Ahmed
The visitation of the ‘scrouge of war’ twice in the lifetime of the framers of the UN Charter led them to incorporate the mechanism into the Charter to save their progeny from a like fate. Learning from the ill-fated League of Nations, universality of Great Power membership was sought through provision of the veto privilege. The victors of the World War were to superintend the emerging world order in accordance with the prescription in Chapters VI and VII, specifically Articles 43-47. As it turned out, the intention ‘to unite (our) strength to maintain international peace and security’ was at best rhetorical. Instead, the subsequent ‘long peace’ was maintained by the alliance system based on the ‘balance of terror’.
The UN’s actions were confined to where the strategic interests of the superpowers were not affected or were coincident . A manner of doing so was the ‘UN invention under Chapter VI 1/2’ that has been characterised as peacekeeping. It was only in the prelude to the fall of the Iron Curtain that peacekeeping acquired the momentum recognised by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. That year also marked the watershed between the peacekeeping operations till then, categorised since as ‘traditional’ or ‘classical’, and its ‘reinvention’ as ‘expanded’, ‘wider’ and ‘second- generation’ peacekeeping. The latest trend reached its zenith in 1992, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tenuous results, unmet expectations and systemic problems have dampened the hopes that the UN ‘renaissance’ would enable the UN to function to capacity as envisaged . One reason for this was the incompatibility of the military doctrine advocated to cope with the change.
This essay seeks to examine the evolutionary change in the nature of peacekeeping and the military implication of the changed emphasis on the ‘use of force’. The intellectual assimilation of the change and the doctrinal efforts to keep pace are examined. The US and UK doctrines are studied in relation to their employment in two of the largest and most ambitious UN missions- the UNOSOM and UNPROFOR respectively. The conclusion that emerges from the study is that the UN needs to persist with the traditional peacekeeping principles until the basic anomalies of the organisation under discussion in the run up to its fiftieth anniversary are dealt with. The false dawn of internationalism led to premature forced development of peacekeeping, that may perhaps have already dealt it a mortal blow.
ALI AHMED MPHIL DISSERTATION FOR MPHIL IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AT CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION
Intervention is a `ubiquitous’ and `perhaps even an inherent’ feature’ of interstate relations . This has been so even in South Asia, since the inception of the sovereign state system on the Indian subcontinent half a century ago. In fact it is this acquisition of sovereignty by these states consequent to de-colonisation that is the primary causal factor in the propensity of these states to interfere in each other’s internal affairs. If sovereignty is taken as an absolute then any action of another state that impacts on any matter that is essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a state, however tangential, is constitutive of intervention . Intervention, in the broadest sense would then be any action aimed at another state (R Amer). This inclusive understanding of the term is best stated as- ‘Any action whereby one state has an impact on affairs in another is intervention’ (J Rosenau) . Intervention is violative of the UN Charter embodied right to non-intervention (Article 2:4 and 2:7) in matters within the free choice of a state by virtue of its sovereignty . These include the choice of political, economic, social and cultural systems and in the formulation of foreign policy. This raises the threshold for identification of intervention to an act that threatens the personality of a state . However, an all-inclusive maximalist definition has been preferred, in this essay, for such has been the trend in South Asia that any action by a South Asian state effecting affairs in another is often intended as and oftener viewed as intervention .
These states, being Third World states, bear the hall marks of being ‘weak states’ (B Buzan). The distinction between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states being in the ability of the state to penetrate society; the input of civil society in governance; the regulation of social relationships to maintain communal harmony; the ability of appropriation and use of resources; public participation and institutional differentiation . Security of such states is measured on a continuum of vulnerability (M Ayoob) with vulnerability being defined as susceptibility to the threat that has the potential to weaken state structures or supervising regimes . In these states the all-inclusive understanding of security- external defence, internal order and development- is a contrast to the traditional military oriented definition. Thus security here is intimately related to the process of state formation, the dominant dynamic being political . Therefore in the past half-century in which this process has been in evidence, most of their actions directed without are in the form of self-assertion, if only as a symbolic assertion of sovereign status . Owing to the same causation, action directed at these states, emanating from within the region or from events and powers external to the region, is taken as interference amounting to intervention.
The South Asian region, comprising 3% of the earth’s surface area and 21% of its population , constitutes the ‘civilisational area’ ( K Subramanyam) bounded by the Baluch Plateau to the west, the Himalayas to the north and the Patkai-Arakan mountain belt to the east. A `security complex’ exists south of this range owing to the amity/enmity security dependencies that bind these states . The Chinese centre of gravity being to the east the northern boundary rests along the Himalayas, which form a physical and psychological barrier. The relative indifference in security terms along the Pakistan-Iranian border marks off the region from the Middle East region. Afghanistan and Burma perform a buffer function between the region and the Central Asian and South East Asian regions respectively. The main feature here is the adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan, across the largest alluvial tract in the world- the Indo-Gangetic plain . The other characteristic is the hierarchical and asymmetric distribution of power (military, territorial, demographic, economic, scientific-industrial), between these states and the other states on the subcontinent .
This geographical imperative is compounded by the strategic preponderance of India . The India-centric nature of the area (economic, geographic, socio-cultural, historical) is evident from the fact that all states here share a border with India and none with any other within the region . This geo-political configuration is central to the strategic calculations of all states. Therefore, they treat and value sovereignty as absolute as realistically feasible, the natural action of ‘quasi-states’ (R Jackson) . This is a defensive measure for protection against the cultural and political pre-eminence of India . The resulting actions are to counter the perceived hegemonistic designs of India .
This e-book’s contents date to when I was in uniform, either in regimental service as a middle piece officer of the Light Infantry and in the Rashtriya Rifles or in extra-regimental assignments elsewhere in the junior echelon of service. The period straddles the turn of the century, with the commentaries written sometime between 1995-2005 or so. The book is thus a good snapshot of the army at the time, a worm’s eye view as it were.
I had a somewhat unique vantage point, having done a War Studies course on study leave somewhat early in service. I thought that the course provided me some insight which made my viewing the Service somewhat different from the perspective of my colleagues in traditional career paths. I therefore believed that communicating these observations to the Service was an obligation, for having spared me for undertaking the course.
While I have inserted a few articles that did see the light of day in Service publications, majority of the pieces here were not so lucky. Some of these were written as observations on contents of Service periodicals – such as the part in this book on Letters to Editor. Others were as responses to in-Service essay competitions – sent with no intention of winning, but only to make a point as contribution to Service thinking. Some were contrarion, but only constructively so.
The articles cover War and Insurgency, the primary preoccupation of the Army in my time and carried in successive sections here. The Punjab and Sri Lankan engagements in the eighties – both of which I saw as a foot slogger – and the extensive commitments in the nineties in Kashmir and Assam - both of which provided locales for jungle bashing and my claim to have soldiered once. The tussle was between votaries of the hard and softline, with me lining up with the latter and fleshing out the Ashokan tradition in Indian strategic thought on the intellectual frontlines within the Service. These writings are part of the second section, on Insurgency, in this ebook.
As backdrop, was the discussion on how to keep the conventional deterrent honed, to keep the subconventional challenge manageable. India dramatically came up with a nuclear answer to this. At the time of writing, this answer was deflated by Pakistan’s upping of the subconventional ante. The professional concerns nuclearization generated energised a small debate within the Service. I lent shoulder to the less popular – though to my mind more sober and mature – strategic alternative by overlaying the Limited War theory on the emerging strategic equation in South Asia. The output is carried in the section on War in this ebook.
Admittedly, some of the impulse behind articles collated here in the Military Sociology part, was grouching, no more than the usual survival strategy of infantrymen. But it was also informed by my learning – admittedly somewhat immodestly put – from my elective ‘Armed Forces and Society’ at the bespoke course. It discusses not only higher order matters as civil-military relations but also the military’s relationship with its mandate, officership and the military as a calling.
A significant aspect of historical interest is in the Letters to Editor pages here. The Letters to Editors were written in response to articles carried on their publication’s pages. These letters usually queried the insertion of Hindutva world view into the professional consciousness using the pages of in-Service journals by officer purveyors. This is in the period of the right-wing government’s first stint in power. It is easy to see how ideological entrepreneurs in uniform used Service conduits to infiltrate Hindutva into the military. At the time they were still in the closet. Editorial inattention allowed for Hindutva discourse to be normalised in the Service. I think this was at the cost of professionalism. The Letters provide a glimpse of Hindutva’s early infiltration into military innards.
I have put in a section on Book Reviews, for in-Service readers. Reading is a habit that is advocated for officers, though increasingly they are not from the catchment of reading public. Besides, service life is apparently considerably busier these days, than was in my time. The idea is to encourage reading, which is ambitious these days and, on that count, inescapable – especially for upwardly mobile officers.
This book owes to the latitude extended to me by my Commanding Officers – for no reasons I was privy to (though I suspect it was to keep me far from the Adjutant’s chair). I have benefited from their stewardship of my time in Service. I used the time to engage with issues way outside my pay grade, as a hobby for most part.
This collection of in-Service reflection is in part testimony of intellectual concerns of officers of my generation. Put out by an atypical officer, there is no claim to any consensus on the thoughts expressed. I take full responsibility for deficits. The hope is that when some military historian or researcher wishes to understand the Service of the turn of the century, she would find here an enlightening page or two.
As India goes into election year, it is important to foreground national security. National security is seldom a concern with voters, who understandably have other significant concerns. However, the last time round, the Narendra Modi government, fearful of not addressing the latter concerns, had instead chosen to leverage national security to get another lease of life. Though it has other rabbits to pull out of its hat to pull off a Modi hattrick of elections at the national level, national security may yet be one among them.
This collection of commentaries is to help voters be more discerning when the Modi regime approaches it for votes claiming to have safeguarded national security or for being strong on defence. The commentaries reveal that this to be the Big Lie, fed to Indian voters since the run up to the 2014 elections. Voters, targeted with incessant information operations since, have granted the regime the benefit of the doubt. This compilation may help with a perspective other than what they are fed with by agents of the regime in the strategic community and by the lapdog media. It aims to furnish relevant information and fleshes out fresh and original takes on national security. Hope it helps The Indian Voter, to whom this ebook is dedicated to exercise her democratic right of informed franchise better.
The book carries articles from September 2022 onwards, the prior series of articles, from March 2022, being carried in my last compilation: India’s Journey to #NewIndia: Through an Ashokan Lens. India’s Journey comprised the first 35 posts on Ali’s Version, my corner at Substack, beginning March 2022. This book carries the posts put out later, and writings elsewhere since September 2022. It is structured in three parts: The National Domain, The Military Domain and Generic Writings. It completes coverage of national security over the past year, enough to take a view on where we’ve come from and where we are headed on this score.
Hindutva dominance of political culture has implications for strategic culture. The muscular image of New India is belied by India’s rather timid response to the challenge of China. Strategic culture is not quite what it’s made out to be by regime apologists.
The finding on these pages is that India’s war avoidance strategy - amouting to appeasement - springs not from strategic factors – as asymmetry in comprehensive national power as some might have it – but a political need not to rock the ship of State as it transits from New India to Hindu Rastra. Consolidation of Hindutva is sought, otherwise liable to be truncated by strategic setback.
Therefore, the regime’s grand strategy is introspective. It is driven not by national interest conventionally defined but by Hindutva taken as the national interest. Thus, India’s strategy prongs – such as its military’s posturing, nuclear deterrence, approach to Kashmir and towards its largest minority - must be seen accordingly.
The implications for the military of this political shift have been dealt with piecemeal in strategic commentary. The Agnipath scheme, the beginnings of a cultural reset and leaving the Services rudderless show how Hindutva is whittling the military. To the regime, the military’s organisational cultural tumult is future insurance against a military pushback provoked by a Constitutional coup ushering in a Second – Hindutva-inspired - Republic.
The year has provided a turbulent backdrop in the thrust for a reshaping of the West ordained ‘world order’ by Russia, aligned with China. India has used the distraction of a conventional war in Europe - and the renewed global appreciation of its geo-strategic location - for its ends: limiting attention to its journey towards being an ethnic quasi-democracy.
These aspects of the strategic scene are captured in respective parts in this e-book: political, grand strategy, strategy, military sociology, Muslim India and global affairs. Over the past six months (March-September 2022), the 35 commentaries here figured as Substack posts on Ali’s Version. Collectively, they constitute a liberal critique of India’s journey to Hindu Rashtra.
Since the governing mechanism of the state is made up of agencies of the state, the action and interaction of these are important in strategic assessment. To ignore this aspect is to the detriment of the credibility and robustness of analysis. It is with this premise that this project approaches the issue it deals with, in the expectation that doing so would be a positive contribution to strategic thinking. To this end the paper brings to bear the insights derived from the study of foreign policy analysis in international relations theory to the Indian context.
The understanding is that marginalized perspectives have their merit and require attention. The nature of strategic analysis being interdisciplinary, it is necessary to input connected aspects of sociology, psychology, and the management sciences into the fiercely defended terrain - that of strategic policy and decision-making. Its policy relevance springs from creating sensitivity to the issues so raised, thereby enabling their being factored into strategic calculus. Its academic relevance is in the study straddling the disciplines of strategy, sociology and foreign policy analysis.
The academic argument is that institutional interests have a substantial bearing on policy formulation and decision-making. These interests are intrinsic to institutions by virtue of being institutions. Thus, there is a corresponding influence on objectivity. The Indian context, in which this feature is analyzed, has interesting conclusions. It emerges that the peculiarity of the Indian setting is that institutional interest-based momentum enables/forecloses policy options, the worth of which is more on account of their political utility rather than some mystical yardstick of rationality/objectivity.
A fresh perspective does emerge when the thesis above is taken as backdrop on the two case studies discussed, namely on the story of Indian nuclearistion and on the pacification effort in Kashmir. Since both have been central to Indian security considerations over the past decade, and are likely to remain so over the forth-coming one, they are topical, and deserving of a specialized non-traditional scrutiny. The conclusions with regard to these individually, and their reinforcing influence on the study’s mainstream conclusions, bring into the picture the non-conventional perspective forcefully enough to deserve a compelling relook. The high-ground appropriated by the established narrative is thus sought to be challenged - the intent being to bring democratic debate back into the areas otherwise considered sanitized of politics by the dominant perspective.
The aim of the project is to examine the nature and impact of institutional interest on security policy and decision-making in the Indian setting. The paper first undertakes a theoretical survey of the institutional dynamics in the national security field, and thereafter witnesses these more intimately in the two case studies. The conclusion is that institutions are major players. Consequently there is a premium on political control. Since such control is itself subject to the interests of political parties and forces, it is imperative that means and measures for the same be studied, debated and instituted. The point is that security is too serious a business to be left entirely to those whose business it is or to those who make it their business.
Foreword
I dedicate this book to believers in Islam. I write of their security predicament in India. I make the case that they have been short-changed by this secular, democratic republic. And this is not only on the time of the current regime in power. It dates back at least thirty years when a virus worse than corona inserted itself into the body politic of this nation. Today, the regime in power is a product and at a grave national security cost.
The regime has taken power on the back of a Big Lie. It has manufactured the perception of an internal security threat by projecting the largest minority anywhere in the world as one. It has ridden the coat tails of the Islamophobia prevalent abroad. It has presented the Indian Muslim as the Other to build up its vote bank based on Hindus. It has subverted national institutions; thus, even when it was not in power, it was in a position to paralyse the government from within. Now that it in power it is in a position to saffronise at will. This explains the dedication in that saffronsisation is a threat to the safety and well being of India’s Muslims.
I have followed the left-liberal thesis on the right wing ascendance in India. I have seen at first hand the influence of the right wing ideology in the military and within the strategic community. I have recorded this in my writings elsewhere. Here I have put together some of the writings that directly deal with the Indian Muslim security predicament. Since I have covered Kashmir in another book, I have not included the travails of Kashmiris here.
In the process of putting this compilation of writings that have appeared at various websites, I have concluded that it is possible to arrive at a security perspective unique for a minority. While usually national security is taken as indivisible, it is not so in reality. If the state is appropriated by parochial interests, such as of the right wing in India’s case, then the minority at the receiving end has to consider its own security by its own lights.
From a reading of this book, it is possible to conceptualise, that where the state is captured by particularist interests, its usage of instruments at its command constitutes a threat to the minority. This is an important finding from a reading of this book, making the compilation a significant one not only for India’s Muslims, but for the national security establishment, strategic community and the attentive public.
I thank the publications in which these 76 articles and commentaries have appeared (milligazette.in; thecitizen.in; ipcs.org; countercurrents.org; kashmirtimes.com; indiatogether.org etc). The first one in the compilation did not find any publisher. I trust readers will find the compilation that covers the last fifteen years offering a different, if not a unique, perspective.
I hope it is read also by Hindu friends so that they can see for themselves the premier internal security threat to India stems from the right wing regime’s subversion of democracy and by its supportive formations that want to use their sway in power to fashion a Hindu India. With the hope they bestir to reclaim the republic.
The book is my modest contribution to my community and to my nation of which my community is part. My gratitude to my wider family that inspired the book.
However, there has been no change in the official nuclear doctrine of India over the past decade and half. This is puzzling, reflecting as it does either a deficit in nuclear learning or that even as India’s declaratory nuclear doctrine remains stagnant overtly and nuclear doctrinal change has been kept outside the open domain. Nuclear ambiguity has overtaken India’s nuclear doctrinal glasnost of the turn of the century. In this chapter, nuclear opacity (Prakash 2014, 6-7) notwithstanding, the finding is that India’s official nuclear doctrine of 2003 stands superseded in light of doctrinal innovation. There is apparently a move towards a warfighting nuclear doctrine and posture, albeit one to cover the deterrence deficit identified. Since secrecy attends India’s operational doctrine (Kampani 2014), a definitive answer is precluded. This is reason enough to interrogate India’s nuclear doctrine.
Keywords: Indian military; military sociology; Hindutva; military professionalism; civilmilitary relations; Indian politics.
A perusal of the collected works comprising close to a 1000 published pieces of varying length, over 4000 pages and some two million words, needs summarizing. The aim is to bring out the underlying unity to the whole. The work has been informed by the peculiar and unique vantage points in my journey. My academic background has enriched the reflection, distinguishing my work from that of other practitioners in that it is a combination of learning and experience. The analytical tools acquired by me while at the DSSC, at the military intelligence course, at the New Delhi think tank and as a UN political analyst with its mission analysis qualification, have been put to good use.
A quarter century of extensive engagement with the strategic discussion in India finds expression in the collection. Not only did I feed into the discussion, but my thinking was enhanced by it. My writings enabled the strategic discussion (if not cacophony) to be taken further and in the
dissemination of the content to an attentive audience, initially within the military, and over the past decade - after I left the military - to an interested public through writing on the web and compiling the collections in two blogs: www.ali-writings.blogspot.in and http://subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.com/.
In the period, India emerged as a reckonable power, with an expanding economic and strategic footprint. There was a growing interest in matters of national security among the educated, middle classes. Consequently, there was much to engage with and write about, particularly off the mainstream track. My contributions are at the interstices of international relations, strategy, military sociology and the political backdrop to internal security.
In this book compilation I have put together my book chapter contributions to various edited
publications in order to get the perspectives presented under one set of covers. Taken together,
they strengthen the liberal perspective in strategic studies. I have been in my writings that are
of shorter length, such as commentaries, opinion pieces and analysis, been a votary of the
liberal world view and have tried to make the liberal case when discussing issues in matters
of regional and national security. I have compiled the eight hundred and more such pieces in
eight other books. I have also put together my articles and essays published in peer reviewed
journals into a book. This book contains my chapter length works, tackling the same themes I
have engaged with consistently – nuclear and conventional doctrine; counter insurgency; India-
Pakistan equations; Kashmir etc.
I recommend these chapters be read alongside my other writings to gain a measure of why
and how the liberal position has advantages for a continental sized country like India and for
the South Asian region of which India is a major part. I trust the student community, academic
peers, fellow former practitioners, and interested readers in India and Pakistan, will find the
effort useful.
I thank the editors of various volumes in which these chapters were included for giving me an
opportunity to present my views. This shows they were already keen on the point of view finding
a place in their edited work, which is to their credit. It is befitting that the Asokan tradition stays
alive and well in India, that is otherwise inundated with writings drawing on and inspired by the
Chanakyan tradition.
I would like to thank the team at CinnamonTeal, lead by Queenie Fernandes, for her overseeing
the production into book for my many books with the publishing house.
I have dedicated this book to my son. I hope his generation benefits from any good coming out
of the book in terms of furthering peace and harmony in India and South Asia.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements 7
Indian Army’s Flagship Doctrines: Need for Strategic Guidance in Harsh Pant (ed.),
Doctrine Handbook, Routledge, 2015, ISBN-978-1-138-93960-8
9
Does India think Strategically? Searching Military Doctrines for Answers in
Happymon Jacob (ed.), Does India think strategically?, Australia-India Institute,
2014, ISBN 9350980398
26
Indian Strategic Culture the Pakistan Dimension in Indian Strategic Culture: The
Pakistan dimension in Krishnappa, Bajpai et al. (eds.), India’s Grand Strategy:
History, Theory, Cases, Taylor and Francis, 2014, ISBN-978-0-415-73965-8
50
India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Stasis or Dynamism? in Brig. Naeem Salik (ed.)
(forthcoming), India’s Habituation With the Bomb - 1998-2018
71
The Nuclear Domain: In Irreverance in Mohammed BadrulAlam, Perspectives On
Nuclear Strategy Of India, And Pakistan, Kalpaz Publications, Delhi, India, 2013,
ISBN-9788178359632
93
Nuclear Doctrine and Conflict in Krishnappa and Princy George (eds.), India’s
Grand Strategy 2020 and Beyond, IDSA, Pentagon Security International, 2012,
ISBN-78-81-8274-657-2
112
AFSPA in Light of Humanitarian Law in Vivek Chadha, Armed Forces Special
Powers Act: The Debate, IDSA Monograph Series No. 7, 2012, ISBN-978-81-7095-
129-1
120
Countering Insurgency in Jammu and Kashmir: Debates in the Indian Army in
Maroof Raza (ed.), Confronting Terrorism, New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2009, ISBN-
978-0-670-08369-5
131
Applicability of Sub-Conventional Operations Doctrine to Counterinsurgency in
Assam in Bhattacharya, R. and S. Pulipaka (eds.), Perilous Journey : Debates on
Security and Development in Assam, New Delhi: Manohar, 2011, ISBN-978-81-
7304-904-0
152
UN Peacekeeping Operations: Leveraging India’s Forte in IDSA Task Force, Net
Security Provider: India’s Out-of-Area Contingency Operations, 2012, ISBN-978-
93-82512-00-4
173
India 2030: With History as Guide in Lele, A. and N. Goswami (eds.), Asia 2030:The
Unfolding Future, New Delhi: Lancer 2011, ISBN-1-935501-22-4
180
I have compiled my essays/articles in this book that have appeared in publications on strategic matters in South Asia. These include my writings for the illustrious Economic and Political Weekly as a strategic affairs columnist. I have a quarterly column, the submissions for which over the past three years have been included in this compilation. My writings while I was in the strategic community in New Delhi as part of the well-regarded think tank, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, are also part of this corpus. I contributed to its flagship publications, Strategic Analysis and Journal of Defence Studies. I have also put together my writings for the publications
of the Indian army’s Center for Land Warfare Studies – CLAWS Journal and Scholar Warrior - in this volume. I have included the issue briefs and policy papers I worked on for the think tanks in New Delhi, including IDSA and the Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies. My web-publications for think tanks and websites covering strategic affairs and international relations are carried in my other eight self-published books of compilations.
I wanted to put these writings under one cover since they took considerable labour, from research, thinking and writing up. Taken together they make for a comprehensive coverage of the strategic field in South Asia over this century so far. The book is also a combative presentation of the liberal perspective in security and strategic studies. The essays together trace the regional trajectory through a difficult period, when nuclear war has always loomed large, in light of the inability of the states in the region – India, Pakistan and China – to resolve their outstanding issues. The essays are pitched at the various levels of war - political, strategic and operational.
The EPW contributions are largely at the political level, dealing with civil-military relations and national security. The ones in Strategic Analysis are pitched at the strategic level and deal in particular with the nuclear dimension. The issue briefs flesh out issues such as the place of human rights in counter insurgency. Some essays offer contrarian perspectives in the context of the times when the chime in the strategic community in India was largely orchestrated by the realists who predominate and set the agenda and discourse.
I trust the essays will prove relevant to the readers’ interests. Their contents are useful for those in national security studies, peace studies, strategic studies, public policy and international relations. Students, academics, practitioners and the attentive public will find them offering new, original and different insights from the run of the mill, if voluminous, work in strategic literature. I hope the readers would be able to see the embedded pattern in the work, of a call to peace through peaceful means.
Acknowledgements
I have put together in this volume my work that is under copyright of the publications it has appeared in. However, this book is not intended for sale or wide distribution, but to ensure that the collective body of my work appears at one place for access by those interested, including perhaps future researchers. I therefore must first acknowledge here the publications in which these essays have appeared in. Their periodic appearance was testimony of the editors’ and readers’ continuing interest in my work and output for which I am most grateful. It did keep me going as can be seen from the compilation covering some the past decade.
I must acknowledge my debt to the institutions at which I occupied academic perches for some five years in New Delhi, at the think tank IDSA and at the central university, Jamia Millia Islamia’s Nelson Mandela Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution. My work there informed my thinking,
provided me with access to library and material and enabled my writings. Besides, while in New Delhi, my writings benefited from the research for my doctoral dissertation in international politics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. It is a lifelong debt. I also used my off-duty time to continue my academic work and interests and must add that the output is solely personal and is of no relevance to any organization I have been associated with. Needless to add, I am alone responsible for shortcomings in the logic and presentation.
Lastly, but most significantly, my family must take any credit there is for persevering in tolerance of me and my authorial idiosyncracies.
AND THE IMPACT ON SAARC
ALI AHMED DISSERTATION FOR THE MSc IN DEFENCE AND STRATEGIC STUDIES AT THE DEFENCE SERVICES STAFF COLLEGE WELLINGTON, INDIA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Over the past decade, India has been in the vortex of change. The old order, based on socialism and pluralism, has been under redefinition. The ascendant ideas are economic liberalization and cultural nationalism. This socio-political tumult has had echo in Indian strategic discourse. The premier contending philosophies in this discourse can be labeled liberal-rationalism and conservative-realism. Currently, the ‘pro-active’ strategic stance of India is reflective of the dominance of the latter in Indian strategic thought.
It being the pivotal state in the South Asian region, India’s strategic orientation is central to the prospects of regional cooperation. Any growth in regional cooperation, as represented by the continued evolution of the regional body, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), is dependant, in part, to Indian initiative in this regard. This initiative is more likely to be the outcome of adoption of a liberal-rationalist position by India in the field of national security – it being the perspective most compatible with regional cooperation.
Aim. The aim of this paper is to examine the impact of the contending philosophies in India on the prospects for regional cooperation. Since both have diverse assumptions, contentions, and prescriptions, the likely outcomes are dissimilar.
Necessity. Such an investigation is necessitated by the manner in which regional cooperation has been held hostage to adversarial Indo-Pakistani equations. Being the major states in the region, their relationship has naturally been central to the prospects of any regional initiative. A liberal-rationalist posture on the part of India would give rise to accommodationist measures that could restore the health of these relations. The fallout would be on a reenergized SAARC that would be of immense benefit to the billion and half inhabitants of the subcontinent.
UN PEACEKEEPING AND MILITARY DOCTRINE
by Ali Ahmed
The visitation of the ‘scrouge of war’ twice in the lifetime of the framers of the UN Charter led them to incorporate the mechanism into the Charter to save their progeny from a like fate. Learning from the ill-fated League of Nations, universality of Great Power membership was sought through provision of the veto privilege. The victors of the World War were to superintend the emerging world order in accordance with the prescription in Chapters VI and VII, specifically Articles 43-47. As it turned out, the intention ‘to unite (our) strength to maintain international peace and security’ was at best rhetorical. Instead, the subsequent ‘long peace’ was maintained by the alliance system based on the ‘balance of terror’.
The UN’s actions were confined to where the strategic interests of the superpowers were not affected or were coincident . A manner of doing so was the ‘UN invention under Chapter VI 1/2’ that has been characterised as peacekeeping. It was only in the prelude to the fall of the Iron Curtain that peacekeeping acquired the momentum recognised by the award of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988. That year also marked the watershed between the peacekeeping operations till then, categorised since as ‘traditional’ or ‘classical’, and its ‘reinvention’ as ‘expanded’, ‘wider’ and ‘second- generation’ peacekeeping. The latest trend reached its zenith in 1992, with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Tenuous results, unmet expectations and systemic problems have dampened the hopes that the UN ‘renaissance’ would enable the UN to function to capacity as envisaged . One reason for this was the incompatibility of the military doctrine advocated to cope with the change.
This essay seeks to examine the evolutionary change in the nature of peacekeeping and the military implication of the changed emphasis on the ‘use of force’. The intellectual assimilation of the change and the doctrinal efforts to keep pace are examined. The US and UK doctrines are studied in relation to their employment in two of the largest and most ambitious UN missions- the UNOSOM and UNPROFOR respectively. The conclusion that emerges from the study is that the UN needs to persist with the traditional peacekeeping principles until the basic anomalies of the organisation under discussion in the run up to its fiftieth anniversary are dealt with. The false dawn of internationalism led to premature forced development of peacekeeping, that may perhaps have already dealt it a mortal blow.
ALI AHMED MPHIL DISSERTATION FOR MPHIL IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AT CENTER OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY
INTRODUCTION
Intervention is a `ubiquitous’ and `perhaps even an inherent’ feature’ of interstate relations . This has been so even in South Asia, since the inception of the sovereign state system on the Indian subcontinent half a century ago. In fact it is this acquisition of sovereignty by these states consequent to de-colonisation that is the primary causal factor in the propensity of these states to interfere in each other’s internal affairs. If sovereignty is taken as an absolute then any action of another state that impacts on any matter that is essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of a state, however tangential, is constitutive of intervention . Intervention, in the broadest sense would then be any action aimed at another state (R Amer). This inclusive understanding of the term is best stated as- ‘Any action whereby one state has an impact on affairs in another is intervention’ (J Rosenau) . Intervention is violative of the UN Charter embodied right to non-intervention (Article 2:4 and 2:7) in matters within the free choice of a state by virtue of its sovereignty . These include the choice of political, economic, social and cultural systems and in the formulation of foreign policy. This raises the threshold for identification of intervention to an act that threatens the personality of a state . However, an all-inclusive maximalist definition has been preferred, in this essay, for such has been the trend in South Asia that any action by a South Asian state effecting affairs in another is often intended as and oftener viewed as intervention .
These states, being Third World states, bear the hall marks of being ‘weak states’ (B Buzan). The distinction between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states being in the ability of the state to penetrate society; the input of civil society in governance; the regulation of social relationships to maintain communal harmony; the ability of appropriation and use of resources; public participation and institutional differentiation . Security of such states is measured on a continuum of vulnerability (M Ayoob) with vulnerability being defined as susceptibility to the threat that has the potential to weaken state structures or supervising regimes . In these states the all-inclusive understanding of security- external defence, internal order and development- is a contrast to the traditional military oriented definition. Thus security here is intimately related to the process of state formation, the dominant dynamic being political . Therefore in the past half-century in which this process has been in evidence, most of their actions directed without are in the form of self-assertion, if only as a symbolic assertion of sovereign status . Owing to the same causation, action directed at these states, emanating from within the region or from events and powers external to the region, is taken as interference amounting to intervention.
The South Asian region, comprising 3% of the earth’s surface area and 21% of its population , constitutes the ‘civilisational area’ ( K Subramanyam) bounded by the Baluch Plateau to the west, the Himalayas to the north and the Patkai-Arakan mountain belt to the east. A `security complex’ exists south of this range owing to the amity/enmity security dependencies that bind these states . The Chinese centre of gravity being to the east the northern boundary rests along the Himalayas, which form a physical and psychological barrier. The relative indifference in security terms along the Pakistan-Iranian border marks off the region from the Middle East region. Afghanistan and Burma perform a buffer function between the region and the Central Asian and South East Asian regions respectively. The main feature here is the adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan, across the largest alluvial tract in the world- the Indo-Gangetic plain . The other characteristic is the hierarchical and asymmetric distribution of power (military, territorial, demographic, economic, scientific-industrial), between these states and the other states on the subcontinent .
This geographical imperative is compounded by the strategic preponderance of India . The India-centric nature of the area (economic, geographic, socio-cultural, historical) is evident from the fact that all states here share a border with India and none with any other within the region . This geo-political configuration is central to the strategic calculations of all states. Therefore, they treat and value sovereignty as absolute as realistically feasible, the natural action of ‘quasi-states’ (R Jackson) . This is a defensive measure for protection against the cultural and political pre-eminence of India . The resulting actions are to counter the perceived hegemonistic designs of India .
To me the offensive military doctrine embarked on by india was contributing to its insecurity, while indeed the opposite should have been the case. My research focused on what impels doctrines. Are these in response to threat perceptions? Do these originate in the body politic of the state? Or are these due to organisational compulsions?
I have compiled here my occasional long form writings on Kashmir since the high tide in the affairs of Kashmir in the early nineties.
CONTENTS
A.
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY – 1995-96
MPHIL DISSERTATION –
INTERVENTION IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS BY STATES IN SOUTH ASIA
CHAPTER III : CASE STUDY II
PAKISTAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN INDIAN KASHMIR
B.
USI PROJECT: MEA CHAIR 2000-01
INSTITUTIONAL INTEREST:
A STUDY OF INDIAN STRATEGIC CULTURE
CHAPTER III - CASE STUDY II
THE ARMY AND KASHMIR
C.
BOOK CHAPTER
COUNTERING INSURGENCY IN J&K:
DEBATES IN THE INDIAN ARMY
Maroof Raza (ed.): Confronting Terrorism,
New Delhi Penguin Viking India, 2009
D.
KASHMIR: A STUDY IN INSURGENCY
AND COUNTER INSURGENCY
(unpublished essay, 1990)
Foreword
This is the second part of Nuclear Heresies. The title owes to the main theme of the book, that a nuclear doctrine that was genocidal to begin with, is now suicidal. The doctrine self-interestedly assumes that South Asia is not in the state of Mutual Assured Destruction. Since at the crunch this notion will be rudely dispelled, the book endeavours to make the case that it would not do to wait that long and instead rethink deterrence and rework doctrine, if not be rid of the wretched weapons themselves.
The book has been twenty years and more in the making. It comprises commentaries with focus mainly on the India-Pakistan strategic equation, of which the nuclear factor is a critical part. It engages with the doctrinal interconnection between the two subcontinental states, arguing that their two doctrines taken together make for a combustible mess.
The book covers the century so far. Since we have managed to avoid a nuclear punch up, this implies we can get along. By no means is this thanks to nuclear weapons. We can thus coexist if not collaborate, and without nuclear weapons at that. This vision needs to energise people, lest someday nuclear use be the trigger for good sense.
I thank the publications in which these commentaries appeared over the years. I have used others’ works as peg for my arguments, sometimes using their ideas for target practice. While some were genuine bhakts of the false god, deterrence, there has been over the years an ideological contamination of doctrinal space by bhakts of the better-known variety. My singular contribution, if any, has been to point to this, hopefully to the betterment of strategic thinking in general.
I hope the commentaries inspire students in particular. Here they can access the nuclear field through an Ashokan lens. The liberal rationalist perspective has a long historical tradition in South Asia. It needs airing in order that someday it gets the momentum and escape velocity to reclaim its place, if not sway, in Indian strategic culture.
Contents
1. The Nuclear Domain: In Irreverence 8
2. Modi at the Helm: Whither Nuclear Decision-making? 17
3. Indian Nuclear Command and Control 21
4. Indian Nuclear Command and Control – II 29
5. The Scientific Establishment: From the Brahmachari Bomb to Brahmastra 34
6. Information Operations in Limited Nuclear War 52
7. A Call for nuclear sanity 54
8. Avoiding Nuclear War in South Asia 56
9. India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Strategic Direction or Drift? 58
10. Modi May Say Otherwise, But India Is Still Short of ‘Survivable Nuclear Deterrent’ 59
11. What nuclear weapons have done to us 61
12. Are India’s nuclear weapons in safe hands? 63
13. Nuclear Battlefield Preparedness 64
14. India-Pakistan: Contrasting Doctrines 66
15. Conventional Backdrop to the NuclearForeground 72
16. Visualising the Impact of Nuclear Operations at the Conventional Level 78
17. India’s forthcoming nuclear doctrine review 81
18. At the Conventional-Nuclear Interface 88
19. The Doctrinal Challenge 93
20. The Danger of Strategic Determinism 99
21. India and China: Nationalism and Nuclear Risk 101
22. Political Dimensions of Limited War 102
23. What Does India Mean By ‘Two Front’ Problem? 105
24. Mountain Strike Corps: The Nuclear Dimension 108
25. Exit Points and the Updation of Cold Start Doctrine 109
26. What Does India Mean By ‘Massive’Retaliation? 112
27. Nuclear Use: Need for Thinking on Political-Level Considerations 115
28. India’s Nuclear Doctrine Review: Don’t Leave It to the Hawks! 116
29. Nuclear Doctrine Review: NRRC 118
30. Diplomatic Engagement in a Post Nuclear Use Environment 121
31. The Aftermath of Pakistani Nuclear First Use 123
32. Nuclear Doctrine Review: Three Deterrence Models 125
33. Severe Indigestion From Nuclear Orthodoxy 127
34. An Indian Nuclear Doctrine Review: A Third Model 129
35. Kashmir and the Bomb 131
36. Nuclear Doctrinal Revision for the China Front 133
37. India’s Nuclear Doctrine: The Storm in India’sNuclear Teacup 135
38. India-Pakistan: Distancing the Spark from theNuclear Tinderbox 136
39. Rethinking India’s Nuclear Doctrine 140
40. The Post Conflict Factor in Nuclear Decision Making 144
41. India, Nuclear Weapons and ‘MassiveRetaliation’: The Impossibility of Limitation? 146
42. Nuclear Use Consequences for Pakistan 147
43. Hatf IX and Possible Indian Responses 149
44. Deterrence has a Shaky and Brief Shelf Life 151
45. Demonstration Strikes, in an Indo-Pak Conflict Scenario 152
46. Tit for Tat: A Nuclear Retaliation Alternative 154
47. What Does Pakistan Hope to Achieve with Nasr? 156
48. Pakistan’s ‘First Use’ in Perspective 158
49. Making Sense of ‘Nasr’ 161
50. Nuclear Targeting Caveats 163
51. The Military Intelligence Function in Future War 166
52. Implications of Indian BMD Developments 168
53. Nuclear Implications of the ‘Two Front’ Formulation 170
54. Re-visioning the Nuclear Command Authority 172
55. Policy Brief Reviewing India’s Nuclear Doctrine 175
56. The Need for Clarity In India’s Nuclear Doctrine 181
57. India’s Response to CBW Attack 184
58. India’s Nuclear Doctrine 187
59. Taking Nuclear War-Fighting Seriously 193
60. India-Pakistan: Missing NCBMs 196
61. Prospects of India-Pakistan Nuclear ConfidenceBuilding 198
62. NCBMs: Scaremongering, But with a Purpose 200
63. The Direction of India’s Deterrent 201
64. Implications of Indian BMD Developments 203
65. Should India Give Up its NFU Doctrine 205
66. The Logic of the ‘Sundarji Doctrine’ 206
67. The Illogic of ‘Unacceptable Damage’ 208
68. The Illogic of ‘Massive’ Punitive Retaliation 209
69. Nuclear Trajectory in South Asia 211
70. Nuclear C2: The Balance Agenda 212
71. Deterrence Stability in a Context of StrategicInstability 214
72. Hatf IX and Possible Indian Responses 216
73. Arguing for NBC Training 218
74. Mountain Strike Corps: The Nuclear Dimension 220
73. One gaffe too many 221
74. Whose command? Whose control? 224
75. The nuclear numbers game 226
76. Wanted: A peace movement 228
77. Making nuclear sense 230
78. The Bright Side of ‘Asymmetric Escalation’ 232
79. On Disarmament Prospects in South Asia 234
80. Yet Another Nuclear Controversy 235
81. The Myth of ‘Weapons of Peace’ 237
82. Getting it Right: Rereading India’s NuclearDoctrine 239
83. Pakistan’s Possible Nuclear Game Plan 240
84. The Calculus of ‘Cold Start’ 242
84. Limited Nuclear War, Limitless Anxiety 244
85. The Day After ‘Cold Start’ 247
86. The Logic of Nuclear Redlines 248
87. A Smoke Screen called Limited War 250
88. The Need to Revisit Conventional Doctrine 251
89. The Impetus Behind Limited War 252
90. Preparing for ‘Limited Nuclear War’ 253
Foreword
Nuclear Heresies is an apt title for this book. Being a nuclear skeptic but with a seat on the margins of New Delhi’s strategic community, I have been unable to come to terms with the prevalent notions on nuclear doctrine and strategy. Though within the room, I have had a seat in the back bench and along the walls of seminar rooms. From that vantage, the vacuity of what passes for informed discussion on nuclear deterrence was pretty much evident, which I proceeded to record.
In this book, I have tried to convey my skepticism on nuclear doctrinal thinking in India over the past twenty years. During the period, the doctrinal field was bubbly, though rather monochromatic. The pundits associated with nuclear doctrine formulation held forth, while their hangers-on mouthed the virtues of an imbecile doctrine, in part, for access to the high table.
The alternative strategic community was as usual alert to this from its marginalized perch on the sidelines of the strategic circuit. It lost one stalwart early on and its other leading lights were caught up with other equally salient matters as India lurched towards the Right in the period. Thus, vigour was at an ebb in the critique, even if rigour was not.
In any case, the alternative strategic community lacked the resources which the state liberally used for the information war on its people, that India is a responsible nuclear power. There is no such thing as a responsible nuclear power.
I persevered in pointing out the emperor had no clothes on, as was the case with most other issues of national security and strategy. This was inevitable from my perspective liberal-rationalist perspective since the mainstream was realist dominated, one taken over in the last decade by closet cultural nationalists who finally shed their pretenses in the Modi era.
Essentially, the book makes the case that nuclear assets, ignoble in themselves, are in unsafe hands. The Hindutva brigade cannot be trusted with the crown jewels. Just as they have muddied the rest of national security, they can be relied on to do this with nuclear strategy too. By then, realization would be too late. Therefore, this book is intended as a timely reminder to voters to rethink who they have handed over the nuclear suitcase to and withdraw the same urgently and unequivocally.
I thank my examiners for the PhD by Special Regulations for reading through this extensive work and showing their confidence in the ideas in it. This emboldens me to pass on the work here, mainly to students who can make up their own minds on what’s right for this country and region. This is the primary motivation of the book. I hope it serves the purpose of getting citizens to junk nuclear weapons, which their governments want them to think as necessary to keep safe.
The book is in two parts, since a single volume would be rather bulky. The two parts comprise chapters, commentaries and articles penned so far this century. The major published works comprising the more thoughtful pieces are in Part I, whereas Part II comprises commentaries on the debates through these years. The two together should prove a useful trove for strategic and peace studies enthusiasts, regional specialists and military affairs afficionados.
Foreword
I have put together my commentaries and articles that dwell on aspects covered by the field of military sociology. Military sociology is not unfamiliar to India’s national security community, with the famous Krishna Menon-Thimayya episode being a case to point. Yet, it’s a subject with a rather low profile, no doubt because of the Indian military’s quest to stay out of, if not above, politics and at a distance from society, best illustrated by its cantonments. However, its visibility is much less than should be the case in a democratic society.
Taken collectively, the 99 commentaries here argue that this inattention to the military’s place in a democratic society – owing to its willing subordination to the civilian sphere – has led to overlooking perhaps one of the most significant changes within the military – a tendency towards the right wing ideology that has over the past three decades permeated society. This is understandable, since with society taking a marked turn to the Right, it is not unlikely that a democratic military can but be a step behind.
Even so, this is an anti-democratic development with constitutional implications. We have witnessed over the past six years of the right wing regime’s sway over power, a dramatic fall of democratic and state institutions. The military has proven an exception in that it is only – at the time of writing – in the process of succumbing. These articles, written over the past fifteen years, trace the manner the military has been suborned by the right wing. The culmination has been over the last year, evidenced in its marginalization as merely a people killing machine Kashmir and but a border guarding force in Ladakh.
The articles in the main discuss civil-military relations, the troubling aspect of which is in the military susceptible to subscribing to the ‘nationalist’ ideology of those in power. The major take-away is that this puts it at odds with the democratic system of alternation in power. This was mildly visible in the earlier period of the United Progressive Alliance in which the military was forever foot-dragging, be it in allowing peace initiatives in Kashmir to culminate or over demilitarizing Siachen.
Another major theme is the lack of representativeness of the military in that the articles capture the phenomenon of the military keeping India’s largest minority out. This has to be boldly said up front since playing footsie with the compelling statistics that underlie this claim is no longer possible. In short, with a dramatic right wing turn combined with the Muslim minority missing from its ranks, the military is only secular in name. In short, we are almost there, where the Hindutva ideologues, under-gridding the strategic establishment of this regime, want India to be.
On this count, this book is important. The compilation of articles that have appeared at various web-portals when put together between two covers, as here, make clear that the penultimate bastion of the state – the judiciary being the last (but one which has already bitten the dust) - is falling. As to whether the situation is retrievable, I leave it for readers in their capacity as voters to answer. The book compilation is an effort towards reversing the trend towards a Hindu army of a Hindu India.
Contents
1. Right Wing Ascendance In India And The Politicisation Of India’s Military
2. Army’s Robustness in Aid of Civil Authority Lessons from the Gujarat Carnage
3. Corrosive Impact of Army’s Commitment in Kashmir
4. Dilating on a ‘Half-front War’
5. The Missing Muslim Army Officers
6. Whose army is it anyway?
7. Questioning afresh Indian military’s social representativeness
8. An Army Day resolution for the new chief
9. The land warfare doctrine: The army's or that of its Chief?
10. The army's two impulses in Kashmir: Human rights Doctrine and departures
11. Human Rights: All so unfortunately ho-hum
12. A police wallah as proto Chief of Defence Staff
13. Spiking possibilities: What is the army chief up to?
14. Contextualising the army chief’s news making
15. Selectivity in military justice
16. Command responsibility in relation to good faith
17. Opening up the cantonments: Army in the cross hairs of the right
18. The army chief as regime spokeman?
19. The Hindutva project and India's military
20. Budget let down further strains army-government relations
21. A revolt of the generals?
22. A political army or an apolitical one?
23. Dissension in the top brass?
24. The General is at it again
25. Debating the ‘harder military approach’
26. An Army to fear: The Army’s future?
27. The Gogoi award puts General Rawat on test
28. To the army: Any gentlemen left please?
29. Dark side of Army’s social media groups
30. Internal security duties in their impact on the army
31. Saluting Bipin Rawat but with a caveat
32. The army officer corps: Missing Muslims
33. Air Chief Marshal Arup Raha Ventures Further Than he Should
34. Yoga as prelude to politicization of the military
35. Look who’s doing yoga now
36. Handwara: Going Beyond SOPs
37. What a short, swift war means for the Infantry
38. The military musical chairs
39. Challenges of the brass in a political minefield
40. Doctrine in Civil-Military Relations
41. Where veterans refuse to give up
42. Is the army court’s verdict on the Machhil killings enough?
43. Kashmir: Hooda walks the talk
44. Kashmir : Politicisation of security and its consequences
45. Modi and the Military
46. Wearing Religion on their Uniform Sleeves
47. The Army: Missing Muslim India
48. Why are Muslims Missing From Army?
49. Fixing Responsibility CI Decisions and Consequences
50. AFSPA: A Question of Justice
51. Do We Need a Chief Warlord?
52. The Sub-Unit Cries for Army Attention
53. Civil-Military Relations: Questioning the VK Singh Thesis
54. Readings for Officers
55. A General’s Unforgettable Legacy
56. Army ‘Transformation’: A ‘Radical’ One?
57. The Third Front: Military Ethics
58. Civil-Military Relations: Under Scan
59. The Army’s Decade in Review
60. The Central Debate in India’s Civil Military Relations
61. Politicisation: In the Context of the Indian Military
62. The Coming Threat of Politicisation
63. India’s Brass: What the Controversy Misses
64. The Military at the High Table?
65. Modi and the Military: Not Quite an Innocent
66. The LoC Incident Calls for Self-Regulation by the Army
67. Countering Insurgency and Sexual Violence
68. Dear General, Please Stay Out of Politics
69. Interrogating Security Expansionism in India
70. The Indian Army: Organizational Changes in the Offing
71. An Issue in Civil-Military Relations
72. Soldiers, not servants
73. Expanding too fast?
74. Uncivil war in South Block
75. An age-old lesson
76. The ‘Age’ of misjudgement
77. Defence reforms: The next phase
78. The Army’s right to its opinion
79. Initiatives to Transform the Army Officer Corps
80. The New Chief and Transformation
81. The Military in Kashmir The Debate Between the Generals
82. An Unacknowledged Vested Interest in a
83. The Army’s Subculture in the Coming Decade
84. The government versus the military
85. Rethinking Civilian Control
86. How deep is the rot?
87. The Indian Army: crisis within
88. Politicisation and the Indian military
89. Hail to the new chief
90. Security agenda: 2006 and beyond
91. Menu for the New Chief
92. Chief of Defense : Implications
93. Elevate Human Rights As the Core Organising
94. Extract from India’s Doctrine Puzzle: The Organisational Factor
95. Extract from India’s Doctrine Puzzle: Service Subcultures
96. Extract from article: ‘Borders and other such lines’, Journal of Peace Studies
97. Review: Vivek Chadha, Indian Army’s Approach to Counter Insurgency Operations: A Perspective on Human Rights, Strategic Analysis, 35:3 May 2011
98. Review: K.S. Sheoran, Human Rights and Armed Forces in Low Intensity Conflict
99. Countering Insurgency In J&K: Debates in The Indian Army
attributed to a military-dominated, revisionist Pakistan posing a strategic
challenge to 'status-quoist' India's natural growth to regional and great power
status. At the sub-conventional level, Pakistan has waged a proxy war in
Kashmir and fostered growth of minority perpetrated terrorism elsewhere
in India. It has sought to limit India's advantages at the conventional level
through an ambiguous nuclear doctrine not ruling out nuclear 'first use'.
Pakistan's perception of threat is dictated by it's army which is at the centre
of its power structure. The army, being realist oriented, is inclined to focus
on the power asymmetry as a 'threat'. Understanding this as the central
problem helps in arriving at possible 'solutions'.
India has, over the past decade, shifted to an offensive and potentially
1
'compellent' strategic doctrine at the conventional level. This is to deter and,
if required, compel Pakistan to discontinue the proxy war. At the nuclear
level, its doctrine posits 'massive' nuclear retaliation to inflict 'unacceptable
2 damage' in case of enemy nuclear 'first use'. Simultaneously, it has attempted
to engage Pakistan peaceably. In the period since nuclearisation, India's
strategy of restraint has ensured absence of conflict. However, the
possibility of conflict remains. This is useful in so far it helps limit Pakistani
provocation. Nevertheless, given the brazen nature of provocations such as
Mumbai 26/11, threats persist. Since escalation dynamics are inherent to
conflict, nuclearisation entails efforts at conflict prevention and limitation.
This paper suggests one such direction in terms of a strategic engagement
with Pakistan on terms its military best understands doctrinal balancing.
The paper draws on the Ashokan tradition of Indian strategic culture.
War. Officially, the land warfare doctrine dates to publication of
Indian Army Doctrine in 2004. It was for a period of time, in the
century’s first decade, colloquially referred to as ‘Cold Start’. The
doctrine per se is for conventional war, but embedded in it are the
tenets of Limited War. The understanding is that whether a war is
‘Limited’ or ‘Total’ would depend on political aims of the conflict
and their strategic and operational translation. Since political aims,
can reasonably, only be limited in the nuclear age, the doctrine
can be taken as being a Limited War doctrine.
website indiatogether.org between 2003 and 2014. The articles
cover the gamut of security and peace in India and the region. They
have been written from the liberal perspective. Taken together,
they are a record of the very interesting and at times dangerous
times, India and the region have transited through in the decade.
The ideas in the book are not new or original. They have been
thought up and thought through by intellectual giants in the field.
I have merely taken the opportunity to adapt them to the Indian
condition and interpret our times in the security field. I have been
privy to discussions in the strategic community and media and have
attempted to engage with the controversies and issues through
my commentaries. I have tried to present ideas to better current
policies and to show alternatives are available where such policies
are dangerous or potentially harmful. Collectively, the articles are
a trove for those interested in liberal perspective on security and
fill a gap in peace studies literature in the region.
I am putting the articles into one cover so as to ease access of
students, researchers and the attentive public to the ideas. They
appear in an abridged form in my blog www.subcontinentalmusings.
blogspot.in. The book must on this count be read in conjunction
with my other book – Think South Asia: A Stand for Peace. Think
South Asia comprises articles carried by websites other than
indiatogether.org. Together, the two books are my life contribution
to peace in the region and in our times.
This book is divided into five parts with articles arranged
chronologically. The themes are: national security, military affairs,
nuclear issues, internal security and minority affairs. The national
security part covers the whole gamut from regional security to
India’s relations with its neighbours, in particular its strategic
equations with Pakistan and China. The defence part has articles
dealing with Indian military and civil-military relations. I have
separately put together the articles dealing with nuclear issues
since I have brought a different view point to bear. My position
is that while nuclear weapons need to be got rid of earliest by
all, that they are likely to be around for some time, implies that
we need to engage also with the least dangerous way they can
be used. The other two parts are on internal security including
Kashmir and the last part on minority affairs.
Since the articles cut across international relations, regional,
strategic and peace studies, I hope the book will be consulted by
students, researchers and the attentive public. This way I hope it
will make a difference.
and indiatogether.org and a few other websites such as countercurrents.
org and thecitizen.in. I have reflected in the main on Indian politics,
Muslim condition, military issues, nuclear war, Kashmir and India-
Pakistan relations. The commentaries therefore would be of interest to
those who have lived in India and have witnessed the region go through
very interesting times this decade between mid 2014 and start of 2016.
The period saw the BJP come to power in India. The ideology of this
party to my mind had implications for the security of the country, the
region and India’s largest minority community, India’s Muslims. I have
largely reflected on these implications and have regrettably had to be
somewhat cautionary. To me, the right wing agenda of the BJP would
drive away the secular foundation of policy and rationalist grounding
of strategy. My commentaries mostly highlighted the dangers and
hopefully have served to alert the thinking public and the strategic
community.
Externally, I think India under the new ruling party is out to try and
intimidate Pakistan into ‘giving up’. The strategy is not without its risks.
I have consistently pointed in particular to the nuclear dangers this
entails. Internally, India’s Muslim minority and Kashmiris are worried
by the majoritarian turn to polity. I have covered these concerns. I have
also looked at the possibility of politicization of the military in some of
the pieces.
Altogether, I think my vantage points have been off the mainstream.
As a result I believe that the angles and perspectives covered in the book
would repay a reader in that she would hopefully find them original,
interesting and refreshing. The book is in a way an extension of my earlier
two published by CinnamonTeal: Think South Asia and Subcontinental
Musings.
In all, the liberal perspective has informed the writings and this
would serve to enhance the thinking on national security and strategy
that is largely stuck in the unprofitable realist groove. I hope the ideas
enthuse students and faculty, lay public, officials and officers. As with
Think South Asia, this book too is dedicated to people of South Asia,
who are, as its title suggests, in life and on earth together as one.
The title needs explaining. I believe a nonsensical strategy has attended India’s Kashmir problem over the past decade. In the United Progressive Alliance government period, the government was afraid of its own shadow. It missed a splendid opportunity to address the Kashmir issue meaningfully. No doubt, it had the shadow of the right wing looming across it staying its hand. As for the right wing, when it came to power, it has willfully messed up the situation further. As the right wing has another lease of life in power, there can only more nonsense up ahead. The assumption is that Kashmiris will bear the brunt and, therefore, it is not of consequence for the rest of us in South Asia. This is untenable. The right wing is perfectly capable of worse and this shall surely come to pass too over the coming five years.
This volume of my opinion pieces in the Kashmir Times over the 2010s are proof of India hurtling down hill as a country, taking Kashmir down with it and looking to drag down the rest of South Asia with it too. This understanding is reverse of the popular notion that it is Pakistan as a failing state that is out to drag India down with it. I believe the democratic take over of India by the right wing is an existential danger to the subcontinent. Its conjoined Kashmir and Pakistan policies are not merely potentially explosive, but are an explosion in slow motion. The answer is not to be found in Kashmir. It is to be looked for in the rest of India, where the electorate needs to rethink its self-interest. The apprehension is that this will not happen till the calamity impending is not over and done with.
In the main, the commentaries here deal with Kashmir and India’s Pakistan policy as relevant to Kashmir. There are several largely critical pieces covering the counter insurgency campaign. Since a significant proportion of the army is deployed in Jammu and Kashmir, the op-eds covered the meaing of the 'strategy' in Kashmir - of which the army was a major instrument - for the army as an institution. The commentaries link India's Pakistan and Kashmir strategies to internal politics in India, in which the ascendance of the right wing meant preclusion of any peace headway. The constant call is for the passing opportunities to be seized. The needs of the strategy of Othering that brought the right wing to power in India account for the advocacy being ignored.
The nonsense in the Kashmir strategy owes to contamination of strategy by ideology. It is no secret that the strategic establishment owes right wing allegiance. The strategic community has had its share of right wingers, who were in the closet till early this decade. Since a major plank of such cultural nationalist thinking is anti-Muslim, any strategy geared to addressing South Asian Muslim issues cannot but be contaminated by ideological baggage. To expect a rational strategy – even one based on realism – is to be wishful. The Pakistan strategy needs no edification. Needless to add, that the strategies will fall flat in good time. The issue is how to survive the deneument.
Plainspeaking is the need of the hour. The compilation is to focus minds. Nothing can be done to avert the catastrophe, but seeing off the right wing back to the margins would require to be done once the dust – hopefully not radioactive - has settled. This would require the shoulder of all institutions. In alerting the nation, the collection of op-eds would have served a purpose.
The compilation would be of interest to students, academics, practitioners in uniform, policy makers and the attentive public. The issues dealt with are at the interstices of strategic. security and peace studies. It has insights for the military engaged in countering insurgency, for their political masters and the bureaucratic intermediary layer both in Srinagar and the national security establishment in Delhi. The book is dedicated to the people of Kashmir, both within and outside of the Valley.
I thank Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal for her unstinting support. Her liberality shines through. Her paper Kashmir Times has ploughed a lonely furrow and done a national service in keeping the liberal torch aloft in trying times. I thank the editorial staff for the support over the past decade of my writing for the paper, the writings put together between these covers: some 100 op-eds comprising 1.25 lakh words. Needless to add, all shortcomings in the language, style and facts are mine. I thank my family for its usual forebearance. Hope their optimism that the essays shall prove useful is proven true.
The themes in this book compilation remain the same as in my earlier nine books, specifically, India-Pakistan strategic equations, nuclear and conventional doctrine, counter insurgency, Kashmir, military sociology and minority security. I have remained engaged with the major issues in national and regional security in South Asia over the year and half over which I wrote these commentaries. The book thus provides a source under one cover for appraising and understanding the ideas and events that have swirled in the cup of strategic affairs. It is particularly pertinent as it has been put together prior to the 2019 national elections in India, enabling voters to reprise the recent past and make up their minds as to whether they feel secure and are convinced that their country’s security is in safe hands.
The undercurrent in the pieces collated here is that national security has suffered under the the regime subscribing to cultural nationalism. Its view of security through ideological blinkers has endangered India and imperiled the region. This was brought to a head in the India-Pakistan crisis of February 2019. While a set of articles dating to the period present this case, the commentaries in the run up over the preceding year appear to predict the oncoming crisis in their coverage of the dangerous – if not reckless – manner national security in India has been run under its current minders.
The election mindedness of the ruling dispensation, with a view to further the cultural nationalist project on a reset of India along right wing lines, has been the over-riding factor and has quite naturally influenced strategic thinking and action. I record in these essays that this influence has been baleful at best. Strategic vacuity has been on full display for anyone caring to look and not be swayed by the compliant media and majoritarian extremists in the strategic community.
I remain indebted to my editors who have courageously accepted my contributions for publication. This has been despite the environment being one of intimidation, where dissidence and sedition are mistaken as synonyms. My insights – if any – on these pages only build on the back of observations and work of straight talking liberal thinkers and activists, who have stood up in difficult times to be counted and spoken truth to power. I believe their effort has firmly contained the right wing lurch of India, but there is much still to be done to reverse the tide of political and strategic toxicity. The book hopes to make a difference.
The book’s 72 commetaries are divided into 4 parts. The Strategy pages cover the issues arising in India-Pakistan relations, developments in Kashmir, internal security under assault by cultural nationalists and politico-military strategy. The Nuclear pages comprise articles on nuclear doctrine. The Military pages are devoted to the army that figured more often than usual in the headlines in the period owing to the visibility of its chief in the media. Finally, I cover the issue of security of India’s Muslim minority in the last part.
Contents
The Strategy pages
• Post poll national security options
• The National Security Agenda for the Next Government
• Can Shah Faesal bring the winds of political change to Kashmir?
• What is the difference between 'defensive offence' and 'offensive defence'?
Lessons learnt from the Balakot strike
• Balakot: Divining India’s strategy from its messaging
Where does the needle point?
• Pulwama: The counter attack
• India and Pakistan must de-escalate the current crisis
• Understanding India's land warfare doctrine
• Options before India to respond to the Pulwama terror attack
• Putting the army’s land warfare doctrine in the dock
• Why There Has Been No Military Response on Pulwama So Far
• Reminding The Political Class Of Clausewitz's First Injunction
• The Army's land warfare doctrine
• The land warfare doctrine: The army's or that of its Chief?
• Operation Kabaddi Revealed But Only Partially
• What do the echoes of Operation Kabaddi really say
• Kashmir: More of the hammer in the coming year
• Kashmir: Need for a peace process
• Kashmir: Towards peace with dignity
• Governor, 'root causes' matter
• Why the events in J&K are not good for democracy in the state
• Divide and kill
• Ajit Doval's platter: Centralisation with a purpose
• Making security a voter consideration
• India-Pakistan and the tussle of escalation dominance
• India-Pakistan: How dangerous are the waters?
• India-Pakistan: Ideology trumps strategy
• India on the brink
• Kashmir: When politics contaminates strategy
• India's spooks: Getting too big for their boots?
• Another disastrous idea from the Modi-Doval stable
• Decoding the Logic Behind the Shelving of India’s Mountain Strike Corps
• The army's two impulses in Kashmir: Human rights Doctrine and departures
• Human Rights: All so unfortunately ho-hum
• To fail Kashmir is to fail India
• Kashmir Peace Initiative: Depriving Pakistan Army Of A Lifeline
• What normalising the Sangh means for national security
• India’s military: Preparing for war in the nuclear age
• The Doval Scorecard
• India's internal security unravels
• A police wallah as proto Chief of Defence Staff
• War in 2018?
• Spiking possibilities: What is the army chief up to?
The nuclear pages
• India’s Nuclear Doctrine: Strategic Direction or Drift?
• Modi May Say Otherwise, But India Is Still Short of ‘Survivable Nuclear Deterrent’
• Modi at the Helm: Whither Nuclear Decision-making?
What nuclear weapons have done to us
• Are India’s nuclear weapons in safe hands?
The military pages
• Contextualising the army chief’s news making
• Selectivity in military justice
• Command responsibility in relation to good faith
• Opening up the cantonments: Army in the cross hairs of the right
• The army chief as regime spokeman?
• The Hindutva project and India's military
• Budget let down further strains army-government relations
• A revolt of the generals?
• A political army or an apolitical one?
• Dissension in the top brass?
• The General is at it again
• The Army: Introspection is warranted
The Chief has spoken; but is the Chief listening?
The Muslim minority pages
• Nailing the lies in name of national security
• Consequences for India’s minority of the gathering war clouds after Pulwama
• George Fernandes keeps his date with Gujarat carnage martyrs
• The minority security problematic
• Finally, the IS bogey laid to rest
• PM Modi's version of Rajdharma
• The army’s robustness in aid to civil authority: Lessons from the Gujarat Carnage
• On the Strongman myth
• A national security mess
• Noting the spokesperson-minister’s remarks
• An officer and gentleman: Worthy of a Muslim's ambition
• The 'incident': Nothing but political
• Is there an Indian 'deep state'?
• The dissident terror narrative
army. They cover the two decades on either side of the turn of the century, thereby providing a
window into the army in the period. The author was an infantry officer and the articles reflect
the concerns of the infantry and the wider army as the author grew in service from a subaltern
to colonelcy. The articles reflect the intellectual growth of the author and engage with the
issues that were salient in his time in uniform. The book is a record of the times as also serves
to provide insight into India’s army. The book is complemented by his other work, From within:
Reflections on India’s army (CinnamonTeal 2017), which comprises his unpublished work on the
same themes. The two books would interest military buffs and the attentive public; veterans
and practitioners; and students and academics in strategic and peace studies.
book on some or other significant national security issue
of our time, the book in your hands is instead a compilation of my
commentaries over the past two years. The advantage of this format
for a reader is that it enables access to a point of view on several issues
that together constitute national security. For me the advantage has
been in discussing at a reasonable length the salient issues that have
cropped up in the period. I have not included my major writings in this
compilation, such as my quarterly strategic affairs column contributions
to the Economic and Political Weekly.
The intention has been to bring to bear the liberal torchlight on these,
informing readers of what is usually missed in the popular and populist
discourse. I therefore see these commentaries as furthering a different
perspective on topical issues and by that yardstick worth a reprise in the
form of a book. This explains the title of the book - India: A Strategic
Alternative.
The book brings together my writings and those under my pseudonym
Firdaus Ahmed. The two streams have flowed parallel so far but this
time round the confluence is to ensure that the two together disgorge
into a reservoir of liberal thought. This needs doing, so as to strengthen
the liberal perspective in peace, security and strategic studies. There
is an increasing need for this to help roll back the cultural nationalist
inflection to realist strategic thinking in India.
Together, the writings deserve one compendium: the ‘subcontinental
musings’ – my fifteen year old column at indiatogether.org - adding to
the ‘blow for peace’ – the blog with my writings. I believe that it is not
only quantity that is evident from the writings clubbed together, but
hopefully also thought and in the right direction at that. I trust these
pieces will prove thought provoking and justify bringing these together
in one cover.
The writings are a continuation of those in my previous such
compilations, specifically, under my pen name, Think South Asia: AStand for Peace, Subcontinental Musings: Making a Difference and
South Asia: In it Together, and my other three books, On War in South
Asia, On Peace in South Asia and National Security in the Liberal Lens.
However, the books that form the foundation of this series of books
are the collection of my writings from my service days: From Within:
Reflections on India’s Army, my unpublished (perhaps unpublishable)
writings in the period and On India’s Military: Writings from Within,
my published writings from the time.
I believe that these eight books and this ninth one, India: A Strategic
Alternative, cover the past quarter century of India’s strategic history
comprehensively and truthfully. Between them, they hopefully form a
trove for researchers and those interested in knowing more of India’s
national security predicament. I have made these ebooks available for
free download on my blogs – www.ali-writings.blogspot.in and www.
subcontinentalmusings.blogspot.in.
I hope the liberal viewpoint reaches and influences maximum people.
India is today beset with a dangerous ideology that is contaminating its
strategic establishment and corrupting its strategic thinking. Whereas
my earlier books have raised the warning of this as I quite saw this
circumstance approaching, this book records the misdirection of India’s
strategic trajectory. It informs of dangers and consequences. It claims
that this is exactly the cultural nationalist project, to make India’s
security predicament such that the security dimension of national life
overrides all else, making India fertile for structural authoritarianism,
personal dictatorship and majoritarian tyranny.
I believe this is the reason why these books need to be read now and
perhaps will be read in the distant future to understand India of today.
The book comprises the published writings in service journals of Ali Ahmed while serving in the
army. They cover the two decades on either side of the turn of the century, thereby providing a
window into the army in the period. The author was an infantry officer and the articles reflect
the concerns of the infantry and the wider army as the author grew in service from a subaltern
to colonelcy. The articles reflect the intellectual growth of the author and engage with the
issues that were salient in his time in uniform. The book is a record of the times as also serves
to provide insight into India’s army. The book is complemented by his other work, From within:
Reflections on India’s army (CinnamonTeal 2017), which comprises his unpublished work on the
same themes. The two books would interest military buffs and the attentive public; veterans
and practitioners; and students and academics in strategic and peace studies.
For the soldiers who served with me
Foreword
The book is a compilation of my in-military-service writings. I served in the Indian army for
twenty one years. I wrote avidly for its in-service publications and editors were kind enough
to publish some of my work. Most of the articles comprised my impressions and observations
on matters military. They were informed by a wide reading of professional subjects including
military history and by my graduate studies. I was fortunate to have undertaken sabbatical in
the UK early in my military career. The articles, book reviews and letters to the editor carry the
imprint of my studies and experience. In all, I managed to have about 95 pieces of varying length
published in service journals, which was reasonably good going since at least a decade of my
writing career was in the pre-internet age.
The published pieces reflect the concerns of the military in the period I served circa a decade
on either side of the turn of the century. They comprise in effect a written record of the times as
regards security concerns and issues as seen through a serving infantry officer. In my letters to
editor I engaged with the issues reflected in the publications, mostly presenting a point of view
that was not always the popular one. The collection expresses the liberal perspective in security
studies. This I believe made my articles somewhat different since my fellow officers largely
subscribed to the realist perspective and service journals usually reflected this bias. However,
that I was patronized by editors – all of whom were serving officers - did not owe so much to my
persistence or originality as much to their breath of vision and commitment to quality of their
journals.
I have divided the book into themes: regular war, irregular war, military matters and sundry book
reviews and letters to the editor. The commentaries in the regular war section deal with my main
area of interest which is limiting war. These were early articulations of my thinking that into my
doctoral dissertation. I converted the dissertation into a book, India’s doctrinal puzzle: Limiting war
in South Asia (Routledge 2014). In the irregular war section, I have compiled the articles dealing
with the army’s preoccupation through the nineties and early 2000s with counter insurgency.
My military service enabled me a vantage from which I could glean some insights on this and
have used the forum of writing for journals to record my observations. The liberal – soft-line
- perspective makes my take on insurgency and its counter different from the general run of
articles that featured in the journals. The military matters section comprises my impressions on
various issues that the military was engaged with intellectually during my time in uniform. There
were many viewpoints and mine was one of them. The topics range from military leadership to
educating army officers. My interest in military and society finds expression in this section. The
book review section has some book reviews I authored, but most have been left out since they
were short in length. The letters to the editor section is the one I am most proud of since I would
step up to the intellectual fight, forcefully presenting my argument or pointing out the fallacy in
some or other article. My excuse is that I was young then.
I believe the book will repay a reading and even a selective reading. It can over time prove to
be a significant contribution to military studies, strategic studies and peace studies in South
Asia since it is an insider’s view of the military in his time. On that count it might have historical
significance in serving as a national security record of the late twentieth century and early
twenty first century. It needs being read along with my other book, From within: Reflections on
India’s army, which is a collection of my military writings that did not get published when in
service. The two taken together will interest lay readers, veterans, military officers and scholars
interested in the military.
Acknowledgements
There are two groups in particular who I must thank for this book. The first comprises the
editors of the service journals who were serving officers on tenures with the institution that
published the journal. Their work is generally unsung and their contribution unrecorded but they
have held the intellectual torch high. They have provided me a forum and I must repay them by
acknowledging their support all through my years in service.
The second group are my senior officers in my battalion, in particular my commanding officers.
They allowed me to moonlight and I hope the output of my time does not disappoint them. The
support of my fellow officers in the various units I served in always buoyed me. Some did not
make it home from their field tenures, but our time together has surely gone into these pages in
some manner and measure.
Also, my father’s military postings during my early years in service enabled me a wider window
into the service that I have liberally relied on to inform my writings. A military background
equipped me well to serve as an observer on the military in my time. My earliest memory is
accompanying my father to the firing ranges sometime in the period before the 1971 War. As a
cadet home on vacations and as a gentleman cadet and young officer I was constantly taken
along for some or other military exercise. Some of these in Kashmir turned out to be adventures,
within sight and sound of gun fire. I suspect the early grounding in the military makes for any
acuity of my insights.
Finally, of course, the book owes to my family’s patience with me. I was allowed to goof off to
the computer at the expense of what could have been quality family time in some or other peace
tenure or when I was home for a limited time on leave. I trust the book compensates for the time
lost.
Other books by Ali Ahmed
From within: Reflections on India’s army (2017) (Ebook) - Download
India’s National Security in the Liberal Lens (2016) (Paperback) - Buy
On War In South Asia (2015) (Paperback) - Buy
On Peace in South Asia (2015) (Paperback) - Buy
First eBook edition published in India in 2017 CinnamonTeal Publishing.
ISBN: 978–93–86301–25–3
Copyright © 2017 Ali Ahmed
Ali Ahmed asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as
reported by the author, and the publisher is not in any way liable for the same. Although the author and
publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of
going to press, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for
any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result
from negligence, accident, or any other cause.
Page Development and Cover Design: CinnamonTeal Publishing
Cover Photo Courtesy: Author
CinnamonTeal Publishing,
Plot No 16, Housing Board Colony
Gogol, Margao
Goa 403601 India
www.cinnamonteal.in
The book comprises unpublished writings of Ali Ahmed from his time in uniform. The author served in the Indian army for two decades. His reflections in the period that did not make it into print have been compiled into this volume. The commentaries here supplement his other book that contains his published writings of the period, On India’s military: Writings from within (CinnamonTeal 2017). The essays are carried unedited to retain the flavor of the times and conditions in which they were written. It has historical value in providing a snapshot of the concerns that animated the army intellectually in the period at the turn of the century. The observations and insights would be useful for both practitioners and scholars in military studies.
For comrades who did not make it back
Foreword
The book comprises my article and commentaries while I was in the military for just over two decades. While my book On India’s military: Writings from within is a collection of my articles that were published in military journals, there were several pieces I wrote that did not get carried in the service publications. I have collected these into this book. I think their publication complements my in-service published writings and taken together the two book present a fair record of the
security concerns and professional and intellectual engagement of the military in the years I served in uniform. While about 95 pieces of mine were published in the many service publications, many more
articles and rejoinders sent in as letters to editors did not see light of day. And, I am sure with good reason. However, to my mind mostly this owed to the service bias towards realism, which is perfectly understandable and not unreasonable. But it did lead to the writings presented here
not making it to print, largely because they were anchored in a liberal perspective. In effect, my views were a counter point, running into a brick wall at times. Nevertheless, as the book testifies, I persisted and some of my views did manage to get to print, even as those that did not
then make it, have this book to finally have an audience.
I think this book is therefore the more significant of the two. It is blunt, straight-forward in a typically soldierly way. It is forthright in criticism of some service mores and practices that do not dignify the service any. By including such pieces in this book without any subsequent editing I think a truer picture might emerge of the military in my time. But of course it is only one view point and perhaps not the most comprehensive or accurate one. However, taken with other vantage points on the military, I am certain my labour at the keyboard will pay off a reader in
search for an understanding of India’s military as also help the military along in its never ending trajectory towards professional perfection.
As with my other book On India’s military: Writings from within, I have followed the same sections to compile my writings: regular war, irregular war, military matters, selective book reviews and letters to the editor. The regular war section deals with conventional and nuclear doctrinal
issues. I have discussed these more fully after I left service in my writings for think tanks and on the web. The irregular war section has articles that draw on my personal experience in counter insurgency settings. My liberal perspective shines through in these articles, arguing relentlessly
that the military has to exercise strict self-regulation lest it impose on people in a counterproductive manner. In military matters, I mostly dwell on the soft-core issues such as military sociology. These articles are the more important ones since they are straight from the heart.
Some appear critical but the intent all along has been to be constructive, to engage, to debate and where possible influence change. The book reviews also bring out a few ideas triggered no doubt by the books reviewed. Some sensitive issues are dealt with in the letters to the editor
section. In some letters I spoke up about what I felt was penetration of majoritarian extremist thinking into military journals. I think this remains an area that warrants close attention, lest the politics in wider society seep into the military sapping its professionalism. The letters testify
that there is sufficient ground for concern on this score.
The book is not quite dated, even though I left the service a decade back. In fact most of the current day developments are riding on the back of issues originating in the period I was in service. The book serves as an outspoken, warts and all, no holds barred record of the military
in my time. It must be read alongside my other book with my published work of the period, On India’s military: Writings from within, to gain a fuller insight into India’s military at the turn of the century. It is for this reason, as an aid to scholarship in national security, security studies,
strategic studies and peace studies, I have undertaken to publish these piece a decade and more since they were penned. I trust the book shall serve to better the Indian army’s professionalism and help it serve the nation with pride.
Acknowledgements
I have had the benefit of a military background and quite like other fauji kids developed early an abiding interest in matters military. The book is a consequence of this interest. It is largely a labour of love since I spent considerable time on the keyboard. Though some of the output
appeared to be critical – perhaps accounting for why the pieces were not published – my writings were with a constructive intent. Where possible I pitched to bolster military good practice and where necessary I was constrained to point out we could have done better. The publication of
this book owes to the same sentiment. It is tribute to my former comrades in arms who made the military the fine institution it was and remains to this day.
I would like to thank my family foremost for permitting me the time and space. The inclusions here testify that it was an uphill journey, clearly one that could not have been undertaken without my family’s support, in particular my wife. Having an absentee husband even while he is at
home is a feeling she perhaps shares with spouses of authors in general. It is to ensure that her time was not spent in vain, I have put this book together, in the hope that some good emerge for India’s army and at one remove for the Indian nation.
First eBook edition published in India in 2017 CinnamonTeal Publishing.
ISBN: 978–93–86301–26–0
Copyright © 2017 Ali Ahmed
Ali Ahmed asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are the author’s own and the facts are as
reported by the author, and the publisher is not in any way liable for the same. Although the author and
publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at the time of
going to press, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for
any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result
from negligence, accident, or any other cause.
Page Development and Cover Design: CinnamonTeal Publishing
Cover Artwork: Painting by Farah Ahmed,
www.farahartcreations.blogspot.in
CinnamonTeal Publishing,
Plot No 16, Housing Board Colony
Gogol, Margao
Goa 403601 India
cinnamonteal.in
India mid-decade. The principal movement it dwells on is the political
makeover in India in the takeover by cultural nationalism of the state.
In the main the book deals with the strategic implications of this major
development. The commentaries reflect the unease among liberals
and rationalists with the right wing lurch in Indian polity. The main
current tying the commentaries together is the reminder on the need
for caution on the national march towards great power and wariness
with the strategy espoused by cultural nationalists and majoritarian
nationalists needs to be taken.
I have chosen to keep the commentaries chronological in the order
they were published rather than club them into themes. Readers who are
part of the attentive public would be able to see how India has shaped
up on the strategic front and follow the national security debates. By
this yardstick, the book is a record of the times in the national security,
strategic studies and peace studies framework. I trust the book will
serve as a useful refresher for those who have followed the discourse and
a useful introduction to national security thinking to those new to it.
A recurrent theme in the book is manner of employment of nuclear
weapons. Although I am completely anti-nuclear, I have engaged with
this issue in order to argue against what I consider an imbecile nuclear
doctrine of India. It is to my mind both genocidal and suicidal. I have
tried to bring this out and argue that nuclear weapons need to be used if
at all unlike as envisaged in the doctrine but at the lowest threshold and
both the exchange and the conflict terminated forthwith in case of their
introduction into a conflict.
On an ideology driven strategy, I note that this cannot but
favour militarism and militarization. Strategy requires rationality
uncontaminated by ideology. The influence of Hindutva on strategic
thinking is easy to see now that the victory for the ruling party at the
polls has emboldened strategists to come out of their closet of cultural
nationalism. Such thinking glorifies India and in particular takes a
dim view of Pakistan. This to my mind renders askew rationality and
is liable if uncontested to land India into an avoidable doctrinal and
strategic cul de sac.
I hope the book creates a niche for liberal perspective in strategic
studies. It would be of interest to practitioners, thinkers and students
as well as those wanting to keep tab on national security affairs that
cannot be left to generals and strategists alone.
This ebook compilation comprises book reviews written 2008 onwards. The book is aptly titled, Firing from others’ shoulders, since it discusses ideas thrown up by authors in respective books. The books were prominent contributions to the literature, mostly in the field of strategic studies. Some have been agenda setting and many discussed ideas already in the national security discourse. Between them, they illuminate vast stretches of South Asia, its happenings and times over the past decade. Many of the points made have been referred to by me in my writings, collected in the earlier ten compilations. The strategic studies field has been greatly advantaged by the swirl.
The ebook traces the intellectual ferment in strategic, security and peace studies. The books covered touch topics ranging from nuclear doctrine to terrorism. In discussing the books - and adding my two pennies worth - the attempt has been to deepen thinking on regional and national security. I believe the mainstream can do with some stirring. It is far too statist, cloistered in realism and – worse - made vapid over the period by the ideological contamination of ascendant cultural nationalism. Swimming against the current has been challenging, but made interesting on that account all the same. It can hopefully be seen on these pages from choice of books to review and the particular idea to highlight, thrash out or trash.
I am grateful to editors who have given space in their publications, in particular the prominent journal, The Book Review India. I must mention Adnan Farooqui in this breath. I have not included the reviews that were carried in service journals in the period and prior to 2008. In the nineties, I was an avid contributor of book reviews to the United Services Institution Journal, where some 30 reviews were published, albeit with a few being merely a paragraph long. All told, I have crossed the 100 book reviews mark. Not only have I enjoyed the reading, but also the thinking that went into taking the work further to sets of readers, both within and outside uniform. The book would interest students and academics, besides helping narrow the reading lists of practitioners constantly short of time. The books appear chronologically, making it easier for lay readers to follow the developments from the global to the local.
I dedicate the book to General Dipankar Banerjee, who I have had the privilege of knowing all through my time on the strategic circuit and who has constantly had an encouraging – and at times life defining - word all along.
As with all other Preface write ups in my ebook compilations, I end this one with a word of thanks for my family, who have patiently allowed me to disappear from time to time behind book covers and then proceed right away to bang away at the keyboard. My excuse has been that the output might be worth something. Since I fire from others’ shoulders in this book, I am certain this time round it would not be a lame excuse.