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Archive for category India’s Nuclear Proliferation

INDIA’S MISSILE TECHNOLOGY HELPERS; Russia, United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Israel, France

 

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India: Missile Helpers

India has Transferred Nuclear and Missile Technology to Iran

The Risk Report
Volume 1 Number 1 (January-February 1995) Page 8

People who live in glass houses, shouldn’t throw stones.

India did not build its missiles alone. The world’s leading rocket producers gave essential help in research, development and manufacture.

France
Licensed production of sounding rockets in India
Supplied the liquid-fuel Viking rocket engine, now the “Vikas” engine of the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) second stage
Tested Indian-produced Vikas engine in France

Israel

Apart from ongoing medium-range and long-range ballistic missile programs, which cost a combined $2 billion, the India and Israel are building a variety of missiles, including a ground-to-ground land attack missile.

That missile is publicly described as a project of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), but it is actually a joint effort with Israel, according to sources.

Increasing the range of the land attack missile from 1,000 to 3,000 kilometers is a joint Israel-India Program.

Germany
Delivered measurement and calibration equipment to ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization) laboratories
Trained Indians in high-altitude tests of rocket motors and in glass and carbon fiber composites for rocket engine housings, nozzles and nose cones
Designed high-altitude rocket test facilities
Conducted wind tunnel tests for Satellite Launch Vehicle – SLV-3 rocket
Developed radio frequency interferometer for rocket guidance
Developed computers for rocket payload guidance based on U.S. microprocessor
Supplied documentation for a filament-winding machine to make rocket engine nozzles and housings
Helped build Vikas rocket engine test facilities
Designed hypersonic wind tunnel and heat transfer facilities
Supplied rocket motor segment rings for PSLV

Russia
Supplied surface-to-air missiles which became the models for the Prithvi missile and the second stage of the Agni medium-range missile
Sold seven cryogenic rocket engines

United Kingdom
Supplied components for Imarat Research Center, home to the Agni missile
Supplied magnetrons for radar guidance and detonation systems to Defense Research and Development Laboratory

United States
Launched U.S.-built rockets from Thumba test range
Trained Dr. Abdul Kalam, designer of the Agni
Introduced India to the Scout rocket, the model for the Satellite Launch Vehicle – SLV-3 rocket and the Agni first stage
Sent technical reports on the Scout rocket to Homi Bhabha, the head of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission
Sold equipment that can simulate vibrations on a warhead

 

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The Elephant in the Room

 

The Elephant in the Room

The biggest pain in Asia isn’t the country you’d think.

BY BARBARA CROSSETTE | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2010

Think for a moment about which countries cause the most global consternation. Afghanistan. Iran. Venezuela. North Korea. Pakistan. Perhaps rising China. But India? Surely not. In the popular imagination, the world’s largest “democracy” evokes Gandhi, Bollywood, and chicken tikka. In reality, however, it’s India that often gives global governance the biggest headache.

 

Of course, India gets marvelous press. Feature stories from there typically bring to life Internet entrepreneurs, hospitality industry pioneers, and gurus keeping spiritual traditions alive while lovingly bridging Eastern and Western cultures.

But something is left out of the cheery picture. For all its business acumen and the extraordinary creativity unleashed in the service of growth, today’s India is an international adolescent, a country of outsize ambition but anemic influence. India’s colorful, stubborn loquaciousness, so enchanting on a personal level, turns out to be anything but when it comes to the country’s international relations. On crucial matters of global concern, from climate change to multilateral trade, India all too often just says no.

India, first and foremost, believes that the world’s rules don’t apply to it. Bucking an international trend since the Cold War, successive Indian governments have refused to sign nuclear testing and nonproliferation agreements — accelerating a nuclear arms race in South Asia. (India’s second nuclear tests in 1998 led to Pakistan’s decision to detonate its own nuclear weapons.)

Once the pious proponent of a nuclear-free world, New Delhi today maintains an attitude of “not now, not ever” when it comes to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. As defense analyst Matthew Hoey recently wrote in theBulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “India’s behavior has been comparable to other defiant nuclear states [and] will undoubtedly contribute to a deteriorating security environment in Asia.”

Not only does India reject existing treaties, but it also deep-sixes international efforts to develop new ones. In 2008, India single-handedly foiled the last Doha round of global trade talks, an effort to nail together a global deal that almost nobody loved, but one that would have benefited developing countries most. “I reject everything,” declared Kamal Nath, then the Indian commerce and industry minister, after grueling days and sleepless nights of negotiations in Geneva in the summer of 2008.

On climate change, India has been no less intransigent. In July, India’s environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, pre-emptively told U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton five months before the U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen that India, a fast-growing producer of greenhouse gases, would flat-out not accept binding carbon emissions targets.

India happily attacks individuals, as well as institutions and treaty talks. As ex-World Bank staffers have revealed in interviews with Indian media, India worked behind the scenes to help push Paul Wolfowitz out of the World Bank presidency, not because his relationship with a female official caused a public furor, but because he had turned his attention to Indian corruption and fraud in the diversion of bank funds.

By the time a broad investigation had ended — and Robert Zoellick had become the new World Bank president — a whopping $600 million had been diverted, as the Wall Street Journal reported, from projects that would have served the Indian poor through malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and drug-quality improvement programs. Calling the level of fraud “unacceptable,” Zoellick later sent a flock of officials to New Delhi to work with the Indian government in investigating the accounts. In a 2009 interview with the weekly India Abroad, former bank employee Steve Berkman said the level of corruption among Indian officials was “no different than what I’ve seen in Africa and other places.”

India certainly affords its citizens more freedoms than China, but it is hardly a liberal democratic paradise. India limits outside assistance to nongovernmental organizations and most educational institutions. It restricts the work of foreign scholars (and sometimes journalists) and bans books. Last fall, India refused to allow Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan journalists to attend a workshop on environmental journalism.

India also regularly refuses visas for international rights advocates. In 2003, India denied a visa to the head of Amnesty International, Irene Khan. Although no official reason was given, it was likely a punishment for Amnesty’s critical stance on the government’s handling of Hindu attacks that killed as many as 2,000 Muslims in Gujarat the previous year. Most recently, a delegation from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a congressionally mandated body, was denied Indian visas. In the past, the commission had called attention to attacks on both Muslims and Christians in India.

Nor does New Delhi stand up for freedom abroad. In the U.N. General Assembly and the U.N. Human Rights Council, India votes regularly with human rights offenders, international scofflaws, and enemies of democracy. Just last year, after Sri Lanka had pounded civilians held hostage by the Tamil Tigers and then rounded up survivors of the carnage and put them in holding camps that have drawn universal opprobrium, India joined China and Russia in subverting a human rights resolution suggesting a war crimes investigation and instead backed a move that seemed to congratulate the Sri Lankans.

David Malone, Canada’s high commissioner in New Delhi from 2006 to 2008 and author of a forthcoming book, Does the Elephant Dance? Contemporary Indian Foreign Policy, says that, when it comes to global negotiations, “There’s a certain style of Indian diplomacy that alienates debating partners, allies, and opponents.” And looking forward? India craves a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, seeking greater authority in shaping the global agenda. But not a small number of other countries wonder what India would do with that power. Its petulant track record is the elephant in the room.

 
 

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MANOJ JOSHI : India’s Weapons Development Progress Report: India’s nuclear arsenal failed by ‘dud’ missiles

India’s nuclear arsenal failed by ‘dud’ missiles

By MANOJ JOSHI

Daily Mail Online, UK

PUBLISHED: 17:24 EST, 3 September 2012 | UPDATED: 17:28 EST, 3 September 2012

 

The most authoritative non-governmental assessment of world nuclear forces has revealed that India’s nuclear capabilities are seriously lagging behind those of its putative adversaries, Pakistan and China. 

The evaluation by Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists called ‘Indian nuclear forces, 2012’, reveals that for New Delhi, the principal means of weapons delivery remains fixed-wing aircraft like the Mirage-2000 and the Jaguar. 

Unlike Pakistan and China which have substantial deployed missile arsenals, India’s missile force is lagging, despite the test-launch of the Agni V in 2012. 

 
Only the Agni I in the Agni series of missiles has entered service

Only the Agni I in the Agni series of missiles has entered service

As the Bulletin notes, ‘the Agni I and Agni II, despite being declared operational, both have reliability issues that have delayed their full operational service’. 

The other missiles in the Agni series – the Agni III, IV and V – all remain under development.

Indeed, the report notes that ‘the bulk of the Indian ballistic missile force is comprised of three versions of Prithvi missiles, but only one of these versions, the army’s Prithvi I, has a nuclear role’. 

Considering that the lumbering Prithvi I requires hours to get ready for launch and has a range of just 150 km, it indicates that the Indian nuclear weapons capability is short-legged indeed.

Nevertheless, the Bulletin notes, the development of the Agni V has introduced ‘a new dynamic into the already complex triangular security relationship between India, Pakistan and China’. Lt Gen (retd) V.R. Raghavan, advisor with the Delhi Policy Group, does not agree with the Bulletin analysis fully.

 
Admiral Arun Prakash, Retired navy chief
Lt Gen (retd) V.R. Raghavan, Delhi Policy Group
 

Admiral Arun Prakash, Retired navy chief (left) and Lt Gen (retd) V.R. Raghavan, Delhi Policy Group

According to him, ‘The Agni I is operational and tested, and Agni II and III are almost there and all three can be used if necessary.’ According to him, the lack of authoritative information on India’s capability ‘is part of our posture of ambiguity’ on matters nuclear. But Admiral Arun Prakash, former navy chief and chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee, has another view.

‘We have to rely on the word of our DRDO/DAE scientists as far as performance, reliability, accuracy and yield of missiles and nuclear warheads are concerned. Unfortunately, hyperbolic claims coupled with dissonance within the ranks of our scientists have eroded their credibility,’ he said.

As of now, according to the Bulletin, ‘we estimate that India has produced 80-100 nuclear warheads’. In the case of Pakistan, whose evaluation was done in 2011, the Bulletin analysis has said that ‘it has the world’s fastest-growing nuclear stockpile’, estimating that Pakistan ‘has 90-110 nuclear weapons’. 

The Pakistani arsenal, too, consists of mainly aircraft-dropped bombs, but with its Chinese-supplied missiles, it has a deployed arsenal of missiles like the Ghaznavi, Shaheen I and Ghauri and is developing longer-range missiles. Significantly, Pakistan’s India specific arsenal comprises of the Nasr short-range (70 km) ballistic missile, which can use nuclear weapons to take out troop formations and Pakistan is in the advanced stage of developing two cruise missiles – the Babur and the Raad.

 
nuke platforms

 

If this is dismaying for New Delhi, the comparison with China is positively alarming. Beijing has an arsenal of 240 or so warheads and it is adding to this number, though not at the pace Pakistan is.

Its nuclear weapons are primarily delivered through a mature missile arsenal with ranges from 2,000-11,000 km. A large number of Chinese missiles, including their cruise missiles, are primarily for use in nonnuclear conventional battle role. Raghavan acknowledges that ‘China is a different kettle of fish’, but he says even so, with the Agni V test, ‘India’s progress has been commendable’. 

But the really big difference between India and China arises from the fact that India’s thermonuclear weapon capability is suspect. 

A Mail Today report (August 27, 2009) had cited K. Santhanam, the DRDO scientist who ran the country’s nuclear programme at the time of the Pokhran tests, to say that the single thermonuclear test carried out at the time was a ‘fizzle’. Responsibility for this state of affairs rests with the government.

According to Admiral Prakash, ‘India’s National Command Authority (NCA) not only meets infrequently, but is loath to take decisions when it does. This has an adverse impact on decision-making, financial approvals and production-rate of missiles/warheads’.

He says that the management of our deterrent ‘by a sub-optimal troika consisting of scientists (in the driving seat), bureaucrats and soldiers’ is also a debilitating factor.

 

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India: Nuclear Helpers : Nuclear Proliferators for India : USA, UK,Germany, Russia, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway

India: Nuclear Helpers

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The Risk Report
Volume 1 Number 2 (March 1995) Page 8

Western companies have supplied India’s controversial nuclear program for more than three decades. All of India’s plutonium-making reactors and heavy water production plants are based on foreign designs.

Canada

Supplied the Cirus reactor, which produced plutonium for India’s 1974 nuclear weapon test
Supplied India’s first two power reactors at Rajasthan, which India copied to build unsafeguarded reactors

France

Helped build the unsafeguarded Baroda and Tuticorin heavy water plants
Helped build the unsafeguarded Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) at Kalpakkam; trained Indian engineers in France and sent French engineers to work in India

Germany

Supplied unsafeguarded Nangal and Talcher heavy water plants; sold teleperm process control system to Hazira heavy water plant
German firm was fined $800,000 by the U.S. for illegally re-exporting U.S.-origin beryllium
German broker arranged illicit sales of more than 200 tons of heavy water to India
Supplied natural lithium useful in making tritium to boost nuclear bombs
Sold zircalloy pipes which are used as reactor fuel cladding

Norway

More than 26 tons of Norwegian heavy water was diverted to India through Romania and Switzerland

Soviet Union/Russia
Secretly sold at least 80 tons of heavy water to run unsafeguarded reactors

Sweden
Supplied specialized steel tube plates for heavy water reactors
Sold flash X-ray devices, which can be used for nuclear weapon development

Switzerland
Helped build the unsafeguarded Baroda and Tuticorin heavy water plants

United Kingdom
Supplied turbine generator designs used at several unsafeguarded reactors
Repaired damaged heavy water equipment at Madras reactor

United States
Supplied heavy water for Cirus reactor that made plutonium for India’s first nuclear bomb

 
 

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India’s Cold Start is too Hot

 

Nearly ten months later, Operation Parakram, a massive exercise in coercive diplomacy, had run out of steam; both sides disengaged. India lost face because of its failure to elicit any strategic gains from Pakistan. This was principally because it took more than three weeks for the three Indian strike corps to reach their wartime locations from eastern and central India. 4During this period, Pakistan was able not only to internationalize the crisis, but also to send a clear message that any attack inside the portion of Kashmir that it controlled would invite a retaliatory strike. 5

Thus for India, the drawn-out arrival time and attendant lack of strategic surprise, inhibiting a rapid punitive strike, was compounded by Pakistan’s quick marshaling of world opinion—all of which pointed to a faulty military strategy. Moreover, the enormous size of the strike corps and concentration in the forward area provided an indication of the general thrust. 6

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the U.S. maritime strategy has played a major role in binding together the international system that U.S. foreign policy has aimed to establish. Meanwhile, American naval power has maintained its country’s status “in the middle of a fluid and troubling strategic environment. The size, shape and strategy of the U.S. Navy are a critical element of America’s position as the world’s great power.” 7 But this appears to be heading for a change.

The “wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have sucked the oxygen out of any serious effort to understand the connection between the large changes that strategic planners see in the future, Americans’ expectations that they will retain their ability to wield global influence, the Navy’s role in maintaining such influence, and the U.S. fleet’s slow evanescence.” 8 A clear illustration of this was the grounding of the USS Port Royal (CG-73) in February 2009, half a mile south of the Honolulu airport. Investigations revealed a sleep-deprived commanding officer and manning shortages, as well as fewer real-life training opportunities. “Reduced budgets, efforts to save money by cutting the size of crews, schemes to take up the slack with shore services and all manner of labor saving devices parallel and reflect the Navy’s increasingly distressed fortunes since the end of the cold war.” 9

Historically, U.S. Naval Forces Central Command has been a dynamic component that ensured stability and security in the Indian Ocean. It still does so. Under the Global Maritime Partnership, it continues to “enhance regional maritime security as well as build capacity of regional maritime forces.” As a consequence, key choke points critical to world trade and economy in an area with extensive shipping lanes and a “very high vessel throughput” has remained secure from traditional and nontraditional threats. 10

On the shores of the North Arabian Sea, nuclear neighbors Pakistan and India have kept the region on high alert. The presence of the U.S. Navy has been the most compelling factor in restraining and cooling frequently exploding tempers. This has ensured stability. The eventual impact of a weakening U.S. Navy may include, but is not limited to, a major shift of power away from American influence in Asia, a debilitating loss of U.S. ability to shape the future strategic environment, and a powerful reinforcement of the perception that the United States is in decline. 11

A shrinking U.S. Navy leading to a reduced presence, along with a weakening ability to project power and provide a steadying presence, will inevitably create a void—which will be filled by the new rising naval power, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy. 12 The strategic environment in the Indian Ocean region may then be altered as never before, to the detriment of U.S. interests.

Through its launch of the nuclear submarine S-2 (the INS Arihant ), India has already militarily nuclearized the region. Because of budgetary constraints and diminishing platform strength, if the U.S. Navy should outsource functions to the Indian Navy, this will have the effect of allowing India to confer upon itself the role of regional policeman. The Pakistan and PLA navies may then forge a new strategic partnership to reshape the area’s maritime environment.

The PLA Navy may deploy more than one carrier by 2015. This will greatly expand China’s ability to project power into the Pacific and Indian oceans. In the latter, it will find no better partner than the Pakistan Navy. What the Indian strategic community continues to call the “encirclement” of India will then become a reality. At that point, not only the North Arabian Sea but the entire Indian Ocean will scream for stability.

Since 2004, the Indian military has tirelessly firmed up Cold Start through a series of exercises, including Divya Astra (Divine Weapon) 2004, Vijra Shakti (Thunder Power) 2005, Sang-i-Shakti (Joint Power) 2006, and Ashwamedh (Valor and Intellectual Illumination) 2007. They made extensive use of command, control, communications, and intelligence networks and systems; and of force-multiplying command posts for the integration and flow of real-time information collected through satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles, aerial reconnaissance radar networks, communication intercepts, and digital photographs of enemy areas. All this was transmitted to forward combat units, facilitating speedy decision-making. During the maneuvers, information dominance of the battlefield was practiced using electronic-warfare systems. 13

In stark contrast to the previous Indian strategy, that of Cold Start essentially is to attack first and mobilize later. 14 The idea is to achieve political and military gains in the shortest possible time, thus circumventing Pakistan’s effort to bring into play international diplomatic efforts. Through joint operations of India’s three services, Cold Start uses army strike corps to provide offensive elements for eight or so integrated battle groups (IBGs). These are fully backed by naval-aviation assets assisting IBGs in the south.

Positioned close to Pakistan’s borders, quite a few IBGs can be launched along multiple axes within 72 to 96 hours from the time an attack is ordered. These battle groups provide rapid thrusts at the same time as India’s defenses are still being organized. The IBGs can continue conducting high-speed day/night operations until the intended objectives have been attained. 15 In short, Cold Start envisages quickly moving forces into unpredictable locations and making decisions faster than opponents can plan. 16

Among Pakistani military insiders, Cold Start has been under discussion since 2005. But our neighbor’s aggressive strategy surfaced as a major challenge after Indian Army chief General Deepak Kapoor sounded a warning in January 2010 that “a limited war under the nuclear hangover is still very much a reality.” 17 Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani responded: “Cold Start would permit the Indian Army to attack before mobilizing, increasing the possibility of a sudden spiral escalation.” 18

Be that as it may, Pakistan’s riposte to the Indian Army chief’s incendiary pronouncement came in April 2010 in the form one of the largest field maneuvers the country has ever mustered. Jointly conducted by Pakistan’s army and air force and called Azm-e-Nau 3 (New Resolve), the exercise aimed at developing response options to Cold Start. Between 10 April and 13 May, 20,000-50,000 troops participated. 19 The area involved Pakistan’s eastern border in Sialkot, Cholistan, and the province of Sindh in the south.

The scenario played out as follows: The Foxland army (representing India) suddenly invaded and occupied part of Blueland territory (Pakistan). A Blueland antitank battalion used dispersal tactics based on Pakistan’s real military doctrine to regain territory in an equally swift manner. 20 In the closing stages, live weapon demonstrations and the shoot-down of a drone were also carried out. Still, the reality of Cold Start places a dilemma before Pakistan’s military planners, as far as guessing which of India’s IBGs would be launched.

The Indian Navy’s stated role in Cold Start seemingly remains limited; ostensibly, the navy will provide aviation assets to IBGs in the southern sector only. But to complement the effort on land, and posing a multidimensional problem for Pakistani military planners, the Indian Navy will inevitably take a forward posture, possibly impose a distant blockade of Pakistani ports, and/or move into sea lines emanating from the Red Sea or Far East. The Indian Navy could deploy submarines—which soon will be armed with land-attack supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles—close to the Makran coast to clog Pakistan’s sea traffic.

The western fleet of the Indian Navy routinely conducts annual exercises in February-March in the Arabian Sea, while its eastern fleet carries out yearly maneuvers in July-August in the Bay of Bengal. When the Kargil crisis erupted in 1999, the Indian military’s tri-services exercise (conducted every three years) was due. In the interest of deterrence, its navy decided to shift the venue of the eastern fleet’s maneuvers to the western seaboard. The two fleets later conducted large-scale joint exercises in the North Arabian Sea. The sole Indian carrier was then under refit, so the navy carried out trials using a containership’s deck as a platform for Sea Harrier aircraft.

A flurry of naval activity and the Indian Navy’s threatening posture prompted the Pakistan Navy to go on full alert. Naval assets were deployed to safeguard national maritime interests. Pakistan also began escorting convoys along traditional sea lines, especially on the Persian Gulf route that transports the country’s strategic commodity—oil—indispensable for both the economy and the war effort. The navy also made plans for conducting P3-C strikes on strategic points along India’s eastern seaboard.

Visibly, the contribution of both navies during the Kargil crisis was enormous. On the Indian side, tri-service cooperation set the standard for future operations, with complete harmony and synergy between its army, navy, and air force. 21 In Cold Start, therefore, the Indian Navy cannot be expected to remain dormant or play a trivial role.

In Azm-e-Nau 3, the Pakistan Navy was assigned the inconsequential role of observer. If continued, such a course could be a fatal mistake. Pakistan cannot afford to overlook the lessons of the past. This nation’s air force and navy learned of the Kargil conflict only after the Indian military reaction had started to unfold. By then it had become indispensable for Pakistan’s army to seek the sudden support of the nation’s two other armed forces.

Even though features inherent to naval platforms, such as rapid mobility, stealth, and speed of deployment, may discount the need for a joint response (at least for the exercises), fixations on modus operandi and clinging to dogmas have destroyed many militaries before.

Because Pakistan inherited a British colonial legacy, the army has dominated the country during much of its history. Past wars with India have been mostly land affairs, with Pakistan suffering severe setbacks because of a weak navy. Yet the army’s mindset remains unchanged. In this climate, the Pakistan Navy strives to demonstrate the significance of maritime issues in the overall national-security calculus.

Aside from its deficiently assigned role in Azm-e-Nau 3, the Pakistan Navy remains fully cognizant of the threat that the Indian Navy could pose in the maritime domain during Cold Start. Accordingly, a major conceptual exercise designed to assess this, evaluate possible scenarios of conflict at sea, and analyze response options was concluded in late 2010. 22Named Shamsheer-e-Bahr IV (Sea Sword), the exercise addressed the new Indian warfighting concept and aimed to prepare a comprehensive counter-strategy.

Spread over two and a half months, the war game was planned sequentially, from peace to full-war scenario—particularly in the southern sector of the country bordering India. Lessons emerging from this effort will be applied in the subsequent Navy-wide exercise Sea Spark to develop Pakistan’s future naval strategy. To inject realism and draw useful information, from the outset the 5th Corps of the Pakistan Army (with its area of operation in the south) and the Pakistan Air Force (Southern Air Command) have been actively involved in the planning effort. Also included are several other representatives of relevant government departments.

No future war can be fought without operational synergy, and a military strategy that does not assimilate this reality will always fail. In Cold Start, a north-south split of Pakistan could occur in the event of a penetration by an IBG positioned in the south. The country’s military planners must think beyond using tactical nuclear weapons. This is imperative: Indian nuclear doctrine is unambiguous in declaring that even a low-yield tactical nuclear weapon will invite a massive retaliatory strike. 23But Pakistan certainly has some other and better response options to consider.

The Pakistan Navy can play a vital role in the south. It can create diversions and fire effects using submarines and air-launched missiles, while protecting sea lines, in particular the Gulf artery that feeds national energy needs. Besides contesting a blockade, the navy could force a counter-blockade of vital Indian shipping by jutting out from the Strait of Hormuz and hugging Pakistan’s western periphery on the Makran coast. Submarines could be deployed at or close to India’s strategic energy and commercial nodes along the Gujarat-Maharashtra coast, causing economic problems. 24 All this would greatly ease Pakistan’s army and air force concerns on land and improve flexibility and liberty of action.

More than 70 percent of Indian oil imports come into ports on the Gujarat and Maharashtra coasts. In 2006-07, 117 million tons of petroleum products passed through the Gulf of Kutch; 95 through Mumbai. India’s major oil refineries are also located in the region. Kandla Port, close to Karachi, handles the imports and exports of highly productive granaries and the industrial belt stretching across Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.

At the inaugural session of exercise Shamsheer-e-Bahr-IV early in July 2010, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan stated: “Prosperity of our people hinges upon the freedom of the sea and security of our sea lines of communication. Notwithstanding its small size, the Pakistan Navy has maintained a close vigilance of the seas and is fully capable of protecting our maritime interests.” 25 Cold Start is based on undertaking offensive operations short of the nuclear threshold. India thereby implies that should Pakistan opt for crossing that threshold, the onus would lie squarely on the latter.

On the other hand, Pakistan’s assumptions about Cold Start are 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. But with Pakistan’s core areas (particularly those in the plains of Punjab) located close to borders and conventional asymmetry favoring India, Cold Start is an exceedingly ambitious and dangerous concept. The fact that the Pakistan Army can occupy contested locations faster than India grants it the capability of preempting Cold Start.

Since time and space would be of greatest importance to Pakistan, if this nation does not preempt India’s Cold Start, the result could be a decision to use low-yield tactical nuclear weapons to dislodge the IBG. And this would be the beginning of Armageddon. The fact that India’s new doctrine was not put into effect following 26/11 (the Mumbai attacks) points to dithering politico-military minds as much as it does to the danger of actually executing a not-so-cold plan.


1. “India’s Cold Start Strategy: Limited Strikes against Targets vs. Hot War Leading to Nuclear Armageddon,” 6 January 2010, http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2010/01/06/india .

2. “Pakistan’s Ongoing Azm-e-Nau-3 Military Exercises Define Strategic Priorities,” Intelligence Quarterly , 6 July 2010,www.intelligencequarterly.com/2010/05 .

3. Lt. Gen. Y. M. Bammi, Kargil 1999: The Impregnable Conquered (Dehra Dun: Natraj Publishers), p. 436, 439.

4. “A Challenging Doctrine,” Daily Dawn , 8 February 2010, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspa… .

5. “Pakistan Forces Put on High Alert: Storming of Parliament,” Daily Dawn , 15 December 2001,http://www.dawn.com/2001/12/15/top1.htm .

6. “A Challenging Doctrine.”

7. Seth Cropsey, “The U.S. Navy in Distress,” Strategic Analysis 34, no. 1 (January 2010), p. 36.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., p. 35.

10. COMUSNAVCENT, VADM William E. Gortney, “Global Maritime Partnership,” talk delivered at Pakistan Navy War College, Lahore, 7 April 2010.

11. Cropsey, “The U.S. Navy in Distress,” p. 37.

12. Ibid., p. 43.

13. “Cold-Starting Pakistan,” Daily News , 22 January 2009, http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=158401 .

14. “Cold Start and Azm-e-Nau,” Daily Dawn , 26 April 2010, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspa… .

15. “A Challenging Doctrine.”

16. Ikram Sehgal, “War-Gaming Nuclear Armageddon,” http://www.opfblog.com/6591/war-gaming-nuclear-armageddon-ikram-sehgal/ .

17. Maleeha Lodhi, “India’s Provocative Military Doctrine,” Daily News , 5 January 2010,http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=216861 .

18. “Kayani Spells Out Threat Posed by Indian Doctrine,” Daily Dawn , 4 February 2010,http://pakistankakhudahafiz.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/kayani-spells-out-t… .

19. Daily Dawn , 11 April 2010, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspa… and “Pakistan’s Ongoing Azm-e-Nau-3 Military Exercises Define Strategic Priorities,” Intelligence Quarterly , 6 July 2010,www.intelligencequarterly.com/2010/05

20. Ibid.

21. Bammi, Kargil 1999 , p. 440.

22. Pakistan Navy, Directorate of Public Relations, press release, 29 June 2010.

23. “Cold Start Doctrine,” Daily Dawn , 18 May 2010, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspa…

24. VADM P. S. Das, “Coastal and Maritime Security,” Indian Defense Review 24, no. 1 (Jan.­-Mar. 2009), p. 125. VADM Arun Kumar Singh, “Peep at the Nautical Crystal Ball,” Indian Defense Review 23, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 2008),http://www.indiandefencereview.com/2010/07/peep-at-the-nautical-crystal-… . Asia TradeHub.com KANDLA PORThttp://www.asiatradehub.com/india/portkandla.asp .

25. “Credible Deterrence Important, Says PM,” Daily Dawn , 13 July 2010, http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspa… .

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