Cold Start Doctrine - Pakistani Response.
Since there are many, many request from the member here, asking me to look at the Cold Start doctrine that Indian Defence is rumored to be using. I was thinking, instead of going over some other threads and some other post and answer what i can with their concern, it may be best for me to open up a brand new article and address all of the concern in a new page, that way it would be easier to control and easier to understand and member can have a big picture of what was going on, instead of having to jumping up and down and skipping post and changing title......
to be fair , I have not even heard of cold start doctrine, not being a follower of South Asian Defence, there are many thing i have to learn and research. And in this article, i will solely go after the military value of the doctrine, trying not to (well, can't even if i wanted) go over to the political side of the story.
What is cold start?
Cold start is a doctrine developed by the Indian Military, in the event of an provoked attack, this doctrine, or guideline on layman term, would be dictating the action Indian Military took after such an event.
In an historic sense, a doctrine would not serve as a tactical capacity but would be incorporated into the training for the action and reaction that to be occur in the environment lay out by the doctrine. Hence, it's serve only as a guideline, but not a step by step instruction to Indian Military if said event do happens in the future.
Cold Start centred at a mobile strike group (or numbers of battlegroup) that when provoked, will be mobilised to engage in a limited war before the Pakistani Defence can be mobilise and put into action. This is the core value of Cold Start Doctrine. Where a full mobilisation of Indian Army would not only take times, but also dangerous as it may felt into full on nuclear warfare.
How Cold Start Works
Cold start would guarantee a limited war with Pakistan, while evade and dodge any negative international pressure, the purpose is for India to launch a holding strike using the mobile strike group. Where as act as a quick grab of territories, it would be useful when the eventual international pressure demand a cessation of hostilities and said territorial gain could be use as bargaining chips on the negotiation table.
This would mean an immediate combine assault toward Pakistan and the whole operation would last for only a short time, mostly before Pakistan can fully mobilise and before international pressure can be pile in.
Strategical Consideration for India
What India need to consider on a strategic level mainly evolve around the question how to not go all nuclear. Attack of any kind will result in correspondent response and it's utmost important for India not to overstep the attack and trigger a full on nuclear war.
With that in mind, the main focus should be target selection. Where a target is important enough to gain point on the negotiation table, but not important enough for Pakistan to start or risk to start a full on nuclear war.
That would directly link to troop deposition. Being a "mobile strike group" If you are going to position them hundreds of mile away from your target, how mobile can it be? Especially when you are talking about time sensitive ops where every minute mean more power on the table. You cannot put your troop far away from your target. However, you also cannot position your troop near the target on the border, or else everyone will know where are you going for when you are about to do it.
Strategically Consideration for Pakistan
One word - Land. The main objective for PDF should be minimise lost. There are pretty much nothing there are the Pakistan need to do, but to fight off the attack and limit Indian gain.
The real estate in this case should be the big focus on the Pakistani mind
Limitation for India
First thing being a plan for retaliation, that is your first step is fixed. What it means is you basically advertise that you have a Military operation incoming. Pakistan will always ready as long as said trigger event happen, they would have expect a strike will soon follow.
This is a bad thing, because in war, the less you let your opponent know the better and being a set piece attack, basically you give enough time for Pakistan to prepare for what coming up next, yes the Pakistani would still have to guess where the attack is going to go down and how it is going down, but the first piece of information is out even before the fight, which give Pakistani the initiative.
Also a limitation would be the troop strength, India cannot afford to march in overpowered, as this will most likely trigger a nuclear war. And being a short campaign, we cannot expect Indian would have anything in reserve to put into action in case something or everything go south. Simply there are not enough time. Also, more troop take longer time to organise and mobilise. And you cannot put a lot of troop on a 24/7 ready state hoping for an attack, so the troop India can mobilise within that timeframe would be minimal.
So, that would severely inhabit the Indian Striking ability, as 2 out of 4 question would already be answer before the war even start. Which is the When and What. Now, the Pakistan military would only need to tactle the problem of "How and Where"
and finally the effort. Being a mobile strike force, the element Indian need to perform a holding strike would be increase in number exponentially, Say for example, you need a brigade of tank to cross the border, you don't just stick 1 flight (or squad or whatever unit apporiate to support) but ideally you will need 3, if what you want is a continous support. You need 1 flight in the air, 1 flight on ready, and one flight for replacement. So in the end, you would need a giantic support force just for a small, multiday campaign.
Limitation for Pakistan
As we know, pakistan is smaller, and narrower piece of land next to india, being small would limited their defence as you have a smaller depth of defence (Strategic Depth), meaning there are no much to buffer and absorb an enemy attack.
Couple with the fact that, basically, nearly half of Pakistan bordered India, that mean strike can be expected anywhere within the border and with increasing Indian amphibious capability, which mean a mobile strike can launch in the western part of Pakistan, leaving only the border with Afghanistan safe from being assaulted.
With that comes the dilemma, with not enough man power (Approximately 500,000 men), you cannot possibly defend the whole stretch of your border with India, and with every inch of land lost would see as a failure to the eventual negotiation, that means Pakistan have to do more with less.
How to counter Cold Start
Technically with this limitation, there are only 3 possible ways to get out of the situation alive. There are and could be asymmetrical response but i am not going to say it here
1.) Take out the provoking factor, i know this is kind of lame, and Pakistani member probably don't wanted to hear this, but this way is the easiest way to make sure Cold Start Doctrine would never actually start. By shaping up the country and eliminate the "Provoke Factor" with the terrorist, that would directly shut off the reason to maintain a cold start.
Simply because the whole doctrine is build on one single thing, that's a terrorist event that trigger Indian Retaliation, so if the triggering event is removed, that would also mean the whole doctrine lose its value.
2.) Take out the "mobile" factor, this is based on Russia Armoured Doctrine, where it was tried and tested during WW2. Which involve setting up defensive perimeter along the border with multiple delaying defences. The universal answer to lack of depth is to strength static defence
However, as i said before on the limitation, Pakistan would have not enough men to fill the defense position, while in WW2, the Russian outnumber the German. So what we need is a little twit on the concept, and put in a factor that make Israeli the king of defence with lack of strategic depth - The potentcy of reserve force
The same problem have been faced by Israeli during the 48 and 73 war, where Israel is the more or less same situation as Pakistan, small piece of land, narrow mass, and surrounded by 3 sides of enemy. What they do during the war was to make the reservist first line of defence. Group them not by divisional location but by where they live.
Modern military usually require reservist to report to duty to a place far away from his/her home, putting reservisst into unit assemble a "Home Guard" means their mobilisation time is shorten and they would fight best on the land they know and they grew up with.
Another thing Pakistani need to pull a victory out of this is a force multiplier. In other word, how to do more with less. What Iraq war (The first one) has taught us, that without some sort of Communication and Update, we would waste a lot of resources in redundance.
Between the First and Second Gulf war, the equipment the US use has not change much, yet we perform better with less troop, less aircraft and less tank. C4I and network centric warfare would improve the Pakistan warfighting capacity greatly, that maybe enough to stop.
3.) Being mobile than the Indian mobile battle group. Base on US Mobile (Organic) warfare. Where the main focus is on choosing the right battleground and try too counter attack the initial assault.
What US facing after WW2 is a massive Soviet Russian Force, particularly with the Russian Armoured Force, it's projection is about the same situation with modern Indian/Pakistan military relationship, where India is bigger and have more force and more power. Pakistan is smaller and have a small force with medium to highly supplicated equipment. Mobile warfare is the answer to a more high tech approach to the problem
Essentially, what you do is a serious of delaying tactics and avoid the main fight, until you have terrain, troop number and support in your favour. If Pakistan defence can be liquid, mobile and self sufficient enough, you can go around the spearhead of Indian Mobile Strike group and attack the vulnerable supply train.
To do that, you will need a very modern armed force, highly technological and highly mobile. Enough to know in advance where the enemy is going to strike, then move your force out of the way to main integrity and also quick enough to organise an attack to outflank your enemy.
Again, Pakistan would need a kind of force multiplier, in a form of "the eyes of the skies" or any form of early warning. As said before, Pakistan would laterally expect an attack after a triggering event, so you will need AEWCS to know first hand where the strike is going to be.
By losing some ground and later counter attack, it would also require less effort to unjamming or compensate for land lost. Say for example, if the Pakistani can pin down some of the mobile strike ground by out manuvering them, you can use it as a bargaining chips in exchange for ground lost by Indian advance.
Effectiveness of Nasr Missile
Nasr Missile is a tactical ballistic missile in use by the Pakistan to supposed counter Cold Start doctrine. Nasr can carry a small sub-kiloton nuclear warhead which would deal maximum damage to amassing enemy troop.
Like other Tactical Short range ballistic missile, such as the famous SCUD missile, they are mobile launchable, with ready time anywhere between 30 to 90 minutes (depending on the ready stage)
What Nasr function is like the Cold War doctrine used by the American during an purposed Soviet Russia full on armoured assault over Europe. Where a few nuclear tipped short range ballistic missile will fire on the massive tank column and knock down a chuck of enemy power with relatively minimal collateral casualty.
Many member have asked would the Nasr be a game changer for the Cold Start doctrine. My answer would be a firm no. The same reason why the US move away from using tactical nuclear missile in an event of massive attack and focus on a 3 pronged defence making use of attack helicopter, tanks and infantry to counter the assault.
Indeed, Nasr would be hard to defeat once launch, however, it's equally important to protect them before they are launched. What we learn from gulf war is that missile have to preset a course, that's where you position your missile battery, you cannot put it in one place and you actually targetting a target 1000km away with that missile. So that's a predictibility .
For the aforementioned plan to work. A Missile needs a target, and being a short range ballistic missile, you need to position your missile close to the target, the reported range of Nasr is slightly over 60km, and that is not a large distant to cover to beginning with.
Now, if you look at the point of view from the Indian, your (Pakistani) missile position related to where my tanks are so that your strike would be effective, and being Indian, they know where the Indian tank are going to be (Well, they position it) and the only thing they need to do is do a sweep with in that 60km circle of each group either by special force or by AWACS. and carry out S&D mission to take out the Nasr that in the vicinity before roll on the armour, that would negate the missile effectiveness greatly.
The US/UK have done the same with the Iraqi Scud battery during the first gulf war, while Aerial Scouting produce little progress, UK SAS make good progress on "SCUD hunt" and render almost all SCUD strike ineffective. And the only different between then and now is back then the SAS don't know what the intended target was (only Either UN Force in Iraq, in Saudi Arabia or Israel) and this time, the Indian Special Force know where to look for the Nasr.
This is my takes on Cold Start doctrine, suggestion/question/discussion welcome and you can drop me a line if you want me to clarify anything. And I tried very hard to stay neutral on this topic and i only discuss the deployment and military aspect of the issue.
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