India's Cold Start Is Too Hot
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IceCold
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I have read enough and well was trying to find an answer which i couldn't even from the most esteemed Indian members here. From a Pakistani point of view...........Pakistan uses a tactical nuclear weapon on its territory on the invading enemy................is that similar to Pakistan using nukes on India? and if the answer is yes as have seen from the post of many Indians here, then the impression that i am getting is that as soon as IBG cross over, we should hit delhi directly with a nuke. Hypothetically lets say we do the latter, so how exactly did cold start proved successful because the whole idea behind adopting this doctrine was to make sure, not to let Pakistan cross its threshold of using nuclear weapons.
Considering all the above, let me ask in all fairness, will India go this far just to hit targets that guarantees nothing?
Considering all the above, let me ask in all fairness, will India go this far just to hit targets that guarantees nothing?
A second strike force.. if it existed.. will be revealed only if the situation demands it.
Consider this though..
a canisterized Babur is not needed for a land based launch..
and that is under development.
Bang Galore
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Pakistan’s Misguided Nuclear Sign
On April 19, Pakistan conducted a successful test-firing of the Hatf 9, a new short-range ballistic missile that’s meant to be added to its fast expanding nuclear arsenal. A surface-to-surface, low-yield battlefield weapon, it’s designed to inflict damage on mechanized forces such as armed brigades and divisions. This was the third such test-firing this year, following the testing of the Hatf 2 (range 180 kilometres) in March and the Hatf 7 or Babur (long-range cruise missile) in February.
It’s no secret that since their nuclear tests in 1998, India and Pakistan have been engaged in operationalizing their nuclear deterrents. This has involved the creation of a stockpile of nuclear warheads, testing and deployment of missiles—especially those with greater reliability, range and accuracy—and the establishment of respective robust and survivable command and control systems.
Not surprisingly, the clearest evidence of these steps has been the periodic testing of missiles. Starting out with short-range (less than 200 kilometres) and liquid-fuelled missiles such as the Prtihvis in the case of India, and the Hatf 1 and 2 in the case of Pakistan, both countries have developed and deployed longer range and solid-fuelled missiles as the mainstays of their deterrence. Variants of the Agni series for India and the Ghaznavi, Shaheen and the Ghauri for Pakistan are now considered as credible delivery vectors.
It had been speculated that with the deployment of longer ranges and solid-fuelled missiles, both countries would eventually cut their dependence on short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) given their geographic proximity and the awkward territorial disputes. The reality is that SRBMs tend to hinder strategic stability and typically add to thedangers of miscalculation or unauthorized launch,especially in times of crisis.
Better intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities would enable bothsides to quickly pick up any signs of missiles being prepared, something that can be extremely dangerous in a crisis situation, especially since India-Pakistan relations are so severely affected by the role of proxy actors operating from (and many argue at the behest) of Pakistan. All this means that mutual acceptance of the removal of SRBMs from a nuclear role would likely be extremely conducive for bilateral strategic stability.
But back to the Hatf 9. What is it for? It has been claimed that the missile is meant as a response to the possibility of an Indian conventional attack through integrated battle groups of infantry and mechanized elements utilizing rapid thrusts into Pakistani territory. Indeed, with the latest test-firing of a missile of a range no more than 60 kilometres, Pakistan has signalled that it does perceive the SRBM as an important tool of coercive diplomacy and as a weapon for use against counterforce targets.
However, this view tends to ignore the fact that even such first-use of a nuclear weapon, however small its yield, would invoke a nuclear retaliation from the Indian side. Indeed, the Indian nuclear doctrine—premised on retaliation only after first-use by the adversary—is based around the retaliation being massive, irrespective of the yield or target chosen by the adversary.
The Hatf 9, then, will only add to crisis instability while being of little use for enhancing the credibility of Pakistan’s deterrence. Nuclear weapons are extremely ill-suited for war-fighting, something that has been proven time and again.
Pakistan
On April 19, Pakistan conducted a successful test-firing of the Hatf 9, a new short-range ballistic missile that’s meant to be added to its fast expanding nuclear arsenal. A surface-to-surface, low-yield battlefield weapon, it’s designed to inflict damage on mechanized forces such as armed brigades and divisions. This was the third such test-firing this year, following the testing of the Hatf 2 (range 180 kilometres) in March and the Hatf 7 or Babur (long-range cruise missile) in February.
It’s no secret that since their nuclear tests in 1998, India and Pakistan have been engaged in operationalizing their nuclear deterrents. This has involved the creation of a stockpile of nuclear warheads, testing and deployment of missiles—especially those with greater reliability, range and accuracy—and the establishment of respective robust and survivable command and control systems.
Not surprisingly, the clearest evidence of these steps has been the periodic testing of missiles. Starting out with short-range (less than 200 kilometres) and liquid-fuelled missiles such as the Prtihvis in the case of India, and the Hatf 1 and 2 in the case of Pakistan, both countries have developed and deployed longer range and solid-fuelled missiles as the mainstays of their deterrence. Variants of the Agni series for India and the Ghaznavi, Shaheen and the Ghauri for Pakistan are now considered as credible delivery vectors.
It had been speculated that with the deployment of longer ranges and solid-fuelled missiles, both countries would eventually cut their dependence on short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) given their geographic proximity and the awkward territorial disputes. The reality is that SRBMs tend to hinder strategic stability and typically add to thedangers of miscalculation or unauthorized launch,especially in times of crisis.
Better intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities would enable bothsides to quickly pick up any signs of missiles being prepared, something that can be extremely dangerous in a crisis situation, especially since India-Pakistan relations are so severely affected by the role of proxy actors operating from (and many argue at the behest) of Pakistan. All this means that mutual acceptance of the removal of SRBMs from a nuclear role would likely be extremely conducive for bilateral strategic stability.
But back to the Hatf 9. What is it for? It has been claimed that the missile is meant as a response to the possibility of an Indian conventional attack through integrated battle groups of infantry and mechanized elements utilizing rapid thrusts into Pakistani territory. Indeed, with the latest test-firing of a missile of a range no more than 60 kilometres, Pakistan has signalled that it does perceive the SRBM as an important tool of coercive diplomacy and as a weapon for use against counterforce targets.
However, this view tends to ignore the fact that even such first-use of a nuclear weapon, however small its yield, would invoke a nuclear retaliation from the Indian side. Indeed, the Indian nuclear doctrine—premised on retaliation only after first-use by the adversary—is based around the retaliation being massive, irrespective of the yield or target chosen by the adversary.
The Hatf 9, then, will only add to crisis instability while being of little use for enhancing the credibility of Pakistan’s deterrence. Nuclear weapons are extremely ill-suited for war-fighting, something that has been proven time and again.
Pakistan
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Incorrect.. I can assure you.. it does not take 27 hours in our case.. even in component form.
however.. believe what you may.
Bang Galore
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Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine
by Taylor Dinerman
Although US policymakers have long been concerned about the possibility that Pakistan's nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists such as the Taliban or Al Qa'eda, a related question has not gotten quite as much attention: What is Pakistan's doctrine for using these weapons in any possible future war with India?
An article by Commander Muhammad Azam Khan (ret.) of the Pakistani Navy, in the March issue of the US Naval Institute's magazine,Proceeding, gives us a small, but frightening, look at the way Pakistan's military thinks about using its nuclear force. Entitled "India's Cold Start is Too Hot," the piece is ostensibly a critique of the Indian "Cold Start" strategic concept, which would allow India's armored units to launch a limited offensive into Pakistan with little or no preparation.
Commander Khan's article includes a glimpse of when and why the Pakistani military could initiate a nuclear war, as in his comment: "The country's (Pakistan's) military planners must think beyond using tactical nuclear weapons," -- indicating that he is uncomfortable with Pakistan's plans to use nuclear weapons in the early stage of any future conflict with India.
At first glance, the logic behind Pakistan's nuclear policy is not too far removed from NATO's so-called "tactical" nuclear doctrine, which, beginning in the early 1950s, was designed to compensate for the West's lack of conventional military "mass" by using Pakistan's nuclear firepower.
Traditionally, tactical nuclear weapons are those designed to attack military targets on the battlefield and strategic ones are designed to hit cities, industrial targets and military bases deep inside the enemies homeland. When discussing the battlefield or tactical use of nuclear weapons, however, it is worth keeping in mind that from the point of view of people close to the action, any use of nuclear weapons in their vicinity is strategic.
To put it bluntly, for Americans, during the Cold War, nuclear weapons going off in Europe might be "tactical," but nuclear weapons going off on US soil would have been "strategic."
The concept was revised several times, but when the Soviets achieved nuclear equality -- and later nuclear superiority in all classes of nuclear weapons -- the NATO "tactical" nuclear doctrine became essentially irrelevant. By the late 1970s, the USSR had both nuclear and conventional superiority over the Western allies.
As a result, NATO not only spent hundreds of billions of dollars building up its conventional force, but also made a modest effort to modernize its nuclear force, so that by the late 1980s, NATO's military power was roughly a match for that of the Soviet armed forces and their allies.
Pakistan's strategy is motivated by forces other than simple self defense. Its defeat in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, which the Bangladeshis refer to as their War of Independence, is fiercely resented by Islamabad's elite. This resentment, when combined with persistent politically and religiously motivated terrorism as well as nuclear capability, has created what is possibly the single most unstable state on Earth.
This instability may very well mean that the usual fears and restraints that leaders have when considering actually using nuclear weapons are not as present as they might be elsewhere.
For India, this has meant that Pakistan has been the base for launching three major assaults: the first in 1999, when the Pakistani Army launched a covert offensive in the Kargil region of the disputed Kashmir province; the second in 2001, when terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament in New Delhi; and the third in 2008, when there was a major terrorist strike on Bombay (Mumbai). Commander Azam Khan claims, with some satisfaction, that, in 2001, when India deployed forces near it's Northwest border, "India lost face because of its failure to elicit any strategic gains from Pakistan."
Azam Khan further explains that he believes India has revised its plans and now has embraced a "Cold Start" operational concept that would allow India to launch an offensive with virtually no notice -- an apprehension not entirely credible, as not even the best trained and best prepared military is able effectively to mount an attack without at least a few days' preparation.
Pakistan's perception of the "Cold Start" concept enunciated by Commander Khan is "that Indian offensive operations would not give Pakistan time to bring diplomacy into play and that such offensive operations would not cross the nuclear threshold nor prompt Pakistan into crossing it." This means he perceives that India believes that the Indian Army assumes it could launch a limited attack on Pakistani territory without fear of a Pakistani nuclear strike. The commander claims that this is a dangerous assumption. the fact that Pakistan would threaten to use nuclear weapons against Indian conventional forces on its own territory may seem normal, or at least as normal as anything to do with the use of nuclear weapons is "normal," but in the context of Pakistan's internal politics and its belief that India is obsessively out to attack it, this idea could lead to what Commander Khan calls "Armageddon."
Other sources indicate that "Cold Start" is an Indian Army concept that has not been accepted as official doctrine by either the Indian high command or by India's political leadership. This difference is significant as, unlike Pakistan, the Indian Armed Forces have always respected ultimate civil authority.
As Pakistan can never hope to match Indian conventional or nuclear strength, it might therefore attempt to make up for this weakness by appearing to be "a little crazy." That method of masking weakness with bluster has been seen before, most notably by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Iraq after its defeat by the US-led coalition in 1991. For Saddam, the results were unhappy; for Pakistan, a strategy based on looking ferocious while actually being weak could lead to results that are even more unhappy.
As a naval officer, Commander Khan makes a good case that both his nation and India depend for their economic survival on access to the world's oceans. He claims that a naval offensive aimed at India's Western Coast could do enough damage to its economy that this might substitute for the tactical use of nuclear weapons. However this strategy would take months to be effective, and in any future Indo-Pakistani war both sides would seek to end it on their own terms, as soon as possible.
India's ability to blockade Pakistan's ports and Pakistan's ability to harass, but not to destroy, India's shipping, adds to the strategic imbalance on the subcontinent. It would take a huge increase in the size and effectiveness of Pakistan's Navy to change this imbalance; such an increase is well beyond the ability of Pakistan's economy to sustain.
The Indian Navy's increasing cooperation with the US disturbs Commander Khan; he claims that Pakistan has the option of offering China's Navy bases and support to counter Indian-US seapower. Just how attractive this option is to China may be questionable. If Pakistan were to turn its back on the United States, China might hesitate to entangle itself with a second unstable, impoverished, nuclear-armed state. One North Korea might be all China prefers to tolerate.
Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine :: Hudson New York
by Taylor Dinerman
Although US policymakers have long been concerned about the possibility that Pakistan's nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of terrorists such as the Taliban or Al Qa'eda, a related question has not gotten quite as much attention: What is Pakistan's doctrine for using these weapons in any possible future war with India?
An article by Commander Muhammad Azam Khan (ret.) of the Pakistani Navy, in the March issue of the US Naval Institute's magazine,Proceeding, gives us a small, but frightening, look at the way Pakistan's military thinks about using its nuclear force. Entitled "India's Cold Start is Too Hot," the piece is ostensibly a critique of the Indian "Cold Start" strategic concept, which would allow India's armored units to launch a limited offensive into Pakistan with little or no preparation.
Commander Khan's article includes a glimpse of when and why the Pakistani military could initiate a nuclear war, as in his comment: "The country's (Pakistan's) military planners must think beyond using tactical nuclear weapons," -- indicating that he is uncomfortable with Pakistan's plans to use nuclear weapons in the early stage of any future conflict with India.
At first glance, the logic behind Pakistan's nuclear policy is not too far removed from NATO's so-called "tactical" nuclear doctrine, which, beginning in the early 1950s, was designed to compensate for the West's lack of conventional military "mass" by using Pakistan's nuclear firepower.
Traditionally, tactical nuclear weapons are those designed to attack military targets on the battlefield and strategic ones are designed to hit cities, industrial targets and military bases deep inside the enemies homeland. When discussing the battlefield or tactical use of nuclear weapons, however, it is worth keeping in mind that from the point of view of people close to the action, any use of nuclear weapons in their vicinity is strategic.
To put it bluntly, for Americans, during the Cold War, nuclear weapons going off in Europe might be "tactical," but nuclear weapons going off on US soil would have been "strategic."
The concept was revised several times, but when the Soviets achieved nuclear equality -- and later nuclear superiority in all classes of nuclear weapons -- the NATO "tactical" nuclear doctrine became essentially irrelevant. By the late 1970s, the USSR had both nuclear and conventional superiority over the Western allies.
As a result, NATO not only spent hundreds of billions of dollars building up its conventional force, but also made a modest effort to modernize its nuclear force, so that by the late 1980s, NATO's military power was roughly a match for that of the Soviet armed forces and their allies.
Pakistan's strategy is motivated by forces other than simple self defense. Its defeat in the 1971 Indo-Pakistani war, which the Bangladeshis refer to as their War of Independence, is fiercely resented by Islamabad's elite. This resentment, when combined with persistent politically and religiously motivated terrorism as well as nuclear capability, has created what is possibly the single most unstable state on Earth.
This instability may very well mean that the usual fears and restraints that leaders have when considering actually using nuclear weapons are not as present as they might be elsewhere.
For India, this has meant that Pakistan has been the base for launching three major assaults: the first in 1999, when the Pakistani Army launched a covert offensive in the Kargil region of the disputed Kashmir province; the second in 2001, when terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament in New Delhi; and the third in 2008, when there was a major terrorist strike on Bombay (Mumbai). Commander Azam Khan claims, with some satisfaction, that, in 2001, when India deployed forces near it's Northwest border, "India lost face because of its failure to elicit any strategic gains from Pakistan."
Azam Khan further explains that he believes India has revised its plans and now has embraced a "Cold Start" operational concept that would allow India to launch an offensive with virtually no notice -- an apprehension not entirely credible, as not even the best trained and best prepared military is able effectively to mount an attack without at least a few days' preparation.
Pakistan's perception of the "Cold Start" concept enunciated by Commander Khan is "that Indian offensive operations would not give Pakistan time to bring diplomacy into play and that such offensive operations would not cross the nuclear threshold nor prompt Pakistan into crossing it." This means he perceives that India believes that the Indian Army assumes it could launch a limited attack on Pakistani territory without fear of a Pakistani nuclear strike. The commander claims that this is a dangerous assumption. the fact that Pakistan would threaten to use nuclear weapons against Indian conventional forces on its own territory may seem normal, or at least as normal as anything to do with the use of nuclear weapons is "normal," but in the context of Pakistan's internal politics and its belief that India is obsessively out to attack it, this idea could lead to what Commander Khan calls "Armageddon."
Other sources indicate that "Cold Start" is an Indian Army concept that has not been accepted as official doctrine by either the Indian high command or by India's political leadership. This difference is significant as, unlike Pakistan, the Indian Armed Forces have always respected ultimate civil authority.
As Pakistan can never hope to match Indian conventional or nuclear strength, it might therefore attempt to make up for this weakness by appearing to be "a little crazy." That method of masking weakness with bluster has been seen before, most notably by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's Iraq after its defeat by the US-led coalition in 1991. For Saddam, the results were unhappy; for Pakistan, a strategy based on looking ferocious while actually being weak could lead to results that are even more unhappy.
As a naval officer, Commander Khan makes a good case that both his nation and India depend for their economic survival on access to the world's oceans. He claims that a naval offensive aimed at India's Western Coast could do enough damage to its economy that this might substitute for the tactical use of nuclear weapons. However this strategy would take months to be effective, and in any future Indo-Pakistani war both sides would seek to end it on their own terms, as soon as possible.
India's ability to blockade Pakistan's ports and Pakistan's ability to harass, but not to destroy, India's shipping, adds to the strategic imbalance on the subcontinent. It would take a huge increase in the size and effectiveness of Pakistan's Navy to change this imbalance; such an increase is well beyond the ability of Pakistan's economy to sustain.
The Indian Navy's increasing cooperation with the US disturbs Commander Khan; he claims that Pakistan has the option of offering China's Navy bases and support to counter Indian-US seapower. Just how attractive this option is to China may be questionable. If Pakistan were to turn its back on the United States, China might hesitate to entangle itself with a second unstable, impoverished, nuclear-armed state. One North Korea might be all China prefers to tolerate.
Pakistan's Nuclear Doctrine :: Hudson New York
Tiki Tam Tam
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I'm afraid you have not got the gist and you are selectively editing my post.
You wrote:
I wrote in reply:
If some IBGs are nuked, I fail to see why the IA has to withdraw.
If they are to withdraw, then why go in, in the first place?
Therefore, once the Cold Start commences, there is no question of withdrawing because even in a conventional war there is no withdrawal, even if some reverse occur on the flanks.
1. I will once again state it that if the tac nuke attack affect a few IBGs and it is below the 'strategic level', why should the IBGs not nuked, withdraw and how is it the ONLY option?
2. I also alluded to a conventional scenario as an example. Now, if in a conventional war, a flanking battalion is wiped out, does it mean that the Battalion that is still moving forward, stop and reel back? Or does it go on to accomplish its mission?
3. If the tac nuke attack is still below the strategic level, where is the issue of MAD, which is at the strategic level?
The effects of a tac nuke attack will depend on the yield, weather conditions etc.
If there is the possibility of a tac nuke attack, would the troops and tanks etc not be in an NBC mode?
I am not ruining the discussion. It appears that you are ruining your own peace of mind. You will appreciate that even under serious disagreement with many issues bandied around, I am not using words and sentence that may appear to be offensive and crude. Why? Because I am equipped to discuss and not prone to fantasy and so, I shrug off much what is being written. I found Santro more close to reality and so I replied to his post, which you found not to your liking. I assure you that I have no ill feeling or carry the historical baggage that burdens most when I enter this portal. In fact, I find a great feeling of satisfaction that I can have a discourse with many beyond the historical animosities, which is no good to man or beast.
Even if PA uses tac nukes, it will not prompt India to resort to MAD. The issue will still be in the tactical realm.
When the international community intervenes, the Cold Start still is a success.
If you read that article I posted the link of the foreign commentary, you will realise the aim of the Cold Start.
Apparently, you have not understood the aim of the Cold Start even though you are admonishing all and sundry that they haven't.
Yes, I have understood as you ask me with the one word - Understood!
I sincerely hope you have understood so that we do not go round and round like Tony Lumpkin!
TaimiKhan
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If Pakistan launches a tactical nuke strike at Indian invading troops in its own territory and India retaliates that with either a tactical nuke on Pakistani territory (since we can't invade India due to lack of resources) or on some Pakistani city and India thinks all will be well, then sorry to say, all iijj not well.
India strikes Pakistani territory will result in a strike on Indian territory, as the tactical nuke of Pakistan is not gonna be used on the Indian territory but on the Indian troops who would be invading Pakistan.
And also, it will not be a first strike on India,as India is not being hit with a nuke, rather Pakistan is exploding the nuke on its own territory, if Indian troops are there, that's not our problem as they are on our homeland and we have to defend our homeland.
IceCold
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Going by this logic, it is clear that the cold start doctrine guarantees India nothing as far as keeping the threshold below nuclear is concerned and on our side we should be absolutely clear that even a tactical nuke used on our own territory will be considered as a nuclear attack and will be responded with full force.
So the final conclusion out of all of this will be that while Pakistan cannot predict India response if and when we use hatif 9, similarly India cannot predict Pakistans response if and when it will use nukes in response to the cod.
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