Commentary

Subcontinent’s Nuclear Escalation: Pakistan’s ‘Zero Meter Vertex’ Nuclear Doctrine

July 29, 2023

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by Adnan Qaiser 30 July 2023

July 2023

An authority on South Asia, C. Christine Fair had noted in her 2014’s scholarship, ‘Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War:’ “Pakistan will suffer any number of military defeats … but will not acquiesce to India. This, for the Pakistan Army is genuine and total defeat.” [1]

In my December 2022’s paper titled ‘Talking the Talk of Pakistan’s Military Might: Indo-Pakistan New Normal,’ [2] I had questioned the logic of Pakistan continue engaging in a conventional (weapon) arms race with India – thus, eroding itself economically – when having successfully established ‘strategic stability’ (nuclear equilibrium) in the region, Pakistan enjoys credible deterrence.[3]

However, with Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence failing twice under India’s belligerence and its repeated cross-border incursions, Pakistan has quietly revised its nuclear policy and posture.

India’s ‘Revisionist’ Cartographic Designs

Trumping logic and common sense, misplaced nationalism and jingoism remains a powerful aphrodisiac for any frenzied nation in a hurry to achieve global acclaim.

With Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) revocation of Article 370 from Indian constitution that granted special status to the disputed valley of Jammu and Kashmir and integrating the region into the Union of India on August 5, 2019, India successfully altered the seven-decade old territorial dispute between Pakistan and India.

Emboldened by their success Indian defence minister, Rajnath Singh and his army’s high command immediately started voicing their plans to take over Pakistan controlled Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) and Azad Kashmir (AJK) too, militarily.

Echoing the Indian parliament’s resolution on Gilgit-Baltistan as India’s integral part during Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s government in 1994, Rajnath Singh reiterated in October 2022, “Kashmir and Ladakh are set on a new path of development and prosperity [post-August 5, 2019]. This is just the beginning. The mission will complete only when Gilgit-Baltistan and areas of Kashmir [under Pakistan’s control] reunite with India.”

Singh was commemorating the occasion of Indian troops’ first landing in Srinagar on October 27, 1947.

Pat on the heels of his defence minister, Indian army’s Lt. Gen. Upendra Dwivedi seconded the remarks of “retrieving” GB and AJK by force, affirming, “As far as the Indian Army is concerned, it will carry out any order given by the government of India. We are always ready for it.”

Pakistan army rebuked the general’s assertion as “delusional mindset.”

With the end of Afghan war in February 2020 – in which Pakistan was acclaimed as a “major Non-NATO ally” – a ‘Beijing friendly’ Islamabad lost all its relevance in Washington’s geopolitical antecedence and utility.

As New Delhi emerged as a vital cog in Washington’s Indo-Pacific geostrategic wheel,[4] India found a renewed vigour to its rallying cry for AJK-GB’s annexation by force.

Speaking at the 24^th ‘Kargil Vijay Diwas’ – marking India’s victory over Pakistan in 1999 – an obsessively compulsive Rajnath Singh reaffirmed India’s resolve once again by stating, “We can go to any extreme to maintain the honour and dignity of the country … if that includes crossing the LoC [Line of Control], we are ready to do that.”

Indo-Pakistan Nuclear Game Theory

According to an international assumption – duly affirmed by both countries – any sub-conventional (terrorist) attack on Indian soil, allegedly by Pakistan based jihadist groups, would invite India’s punishment to Pakistan either through a major conventional attack, or by carrying-out surgical strikes inside Pakistani territory employing its ‘proactive operations strategy’ (Cold Start Doctrine or limited war option).

Pakistan, on the other hand, has already vowed to use its low-yield ‘tactical nuclear weapon’ (TNW)[5] named Nasr (Hatf-IX) against any such aggression, to the extent of using the 60km range nuclear weapon “inside Pakistan’s own territory.”

Such a response would compel India to carry out a ‘theatre nuclear strike’[6] against Pakistan in line with its declared nuclear doctrine of January 2003.[7]

Pakistan’s Deterrence Failure

However, Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence (FSD) failed at two occasions:

1) One, when India carried out its “surgical strikes” in Pakistan’s Azad Kashmir on September 29, 2016;[8] and

2) Secondly, when Indian fighter jets intruded into Pakistani territory and attacked Balakot on February 26, 2019 – the first of its kind after the War of 1971[9]

Pakistan “rejected” the Indian claim in the first instance and downplayed the Balakot attack as having caused no significant damage.

However, in my September 2019’s paper on Balakot titled ‘Calling Nuclear Bluff on Balakot: India’s ‘Choreographed’ Corporal Punishment to Pakistan,’ I had contended Pakistan’s ‘full knowledge and concurrence,’ in what I had seen as a ‘choreographed military encounter’ right under the watchful eyes of international powers. The bidding was not to harm any people or property on either side; and it did not.’[10]

Pakistan’s Worrisome ‘Zero Meter Vertex’ Nuclear Doctrine

In his talk at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad on May 24, 2023, while commemorating the 25^th anniversary of Pakistan’s nuclear tests of May 1998, Pakistan’s father of nuclear policy Lt. Gen. (Ret’d) Khalid Kidwai hinted at Pakistan revising its nuclear doctrine by introducing “horizontal inventory” and “vertical range covering vertices from zero meters to 2750km.”[11]

Defining the horizontal lay of Pakistan’s Full Spectrum Deterrence,[12] the general stated it, “comprises horizontally of a robust tri-services inventory of a variety of nuclear weapons … [that] is held on land with the Army Strategic Force Command, the ASFC; at sea with the Naval Strategic Force Command, the NSFC; and in the air with the Air Force Strategic Command, the AFSC.”

Regarding the vertical range vertices, the general highlighted, “vertically the spectrum encapsulates adequate range coverage from 0 meters to 2,750 kilometers [about 1,700 miles] as well as nuclear weapons destructive yields at three tiers—strategic, operational, and tactical.”

Upsetting India’s plans of employing similar tactics as that of Germany’s First World War’s ‘Schlieffen Plan’ in India’s so-called ‘two-front war’ against China and Pakistan simultaneously, a “zero meter vertex” nuclear threshold has alarmed India about Pakistan employing ‘nuclear artillery, atomic demolition munitions and nuclear mines.’

Schlieffen Plan had aimed to defeat Germany’s smaller enemy to the west (France) quickly, before taking on the larger adversary (Russia) later. The two short wars (out of three) in 1965 and 1971 that India fought against Pakistan seem to have given India enough confidence to vanquish Pakistan swiftly before taking on the mighty China in India’s ‘two-and-a-half-front war’ (taking into account India’s several ongoing domestic insurgencies and separatist movements).

While General Kidwai’s “zero range vertex” nuclear employment may have meant to forestall India’s proclivity of cross-border strikes, being an ex-army officer “zero meter” reminds me of combat’s two testing scenarios:

1) First is the ‘close quarter battle’ (CQB) in which troops fight hand-to-hand. We witnessed it in Sino-India military clash at Galwan valley, Ladakh, when troops from the two sides came to blows on June 16, 2020. How a CQB in a nuclear environment will play out, remains beyond one’s imagination and logic;

2) Second is the military commander’s dreaded order of ‘D.F.O.L.’ Having his troops run over by the enemy, the commander is left with no choice but to call a barrage of ‘Defensive Fire Own Location’ by his artillery and air assets in close air support, essentially annihilating his own forces.

Subcontinent’s Nuclear Escalatory Trends

Ironically, while India expects Pakistan’s policy makers to fathom – and get deterred – from India’s threatening nuclear posture, it cries foul at Pakistan’s counter measures.

Dismissing Pakistan’s nuclear usage as a “graduated response,” while India bullies its “massive retaliation by theatre nuclear strike,” India conveniently overlooks Pakistan’s ‘second strike capability’ – that comes through Babur-3 and Babur-IA SLCMs (submarine launched cruise missiles) – and fast attaining MIRVing capability (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles).[13]

Despite lacking a typical ‘nuclear triad’ – air, land and sea based SSBNs (sea submersible, ballistic launched, nuclear powered submarines) – Pakistan innovated its ‘own nuclear triad,’ employing:

1) Land-based (moveable) assorted array of short, medium and long-range ballistic missiles;

2) Self-modified F-16 and Mirage-2000 aircrafts to carry the payload of 600km range Raad-II ALCM (air launched cruise missiles); and

3) Submarine launched Babur-3 and Babur-IA nuclear tipped cruise missiles carrying a range of 450 miles (724km)[14]

However, as pointed out by Christopher Clary and Vipin Narang in their analysis, ‘India’s Counterforce Temptations: Strategic Dilemmas, Doctrine, and Capabilities,’ India remains transfixed at taking out Pakistan’s nuclear assets in a pre-emptive decapitating ‘counterforce’ strike (at silos and hardened bunkers).

The authors note, “Indian policymakers appear to be attracted to a … hard counterforce strike against Pakistan’s relatively small number—perhaps several dozen—strategic nuclear assets on land (and eventually at sea) to eliminate its ability to destroy Indian strategic targets and cities.

However, the authors also warn, “India’s prospects for counterforce success are dubious and the adoption of a counterforce strategy … could have significant deleterious consequences.”[15]

Thus, Pakistan’s nuclear policy change, most likely, comes from:

1) India’s overt departure from its “no first use,” policy;

2) India’s ballistic missile defence (BMD) capability,[16] fortified by Russia’s S-400 missile defence system; and

3) Facing no obstruction, India’s growing predilection with frequent cross-border strikes in neighbouring Myanmar (in June 2015) and Pakistan, under its dangerous ‘proactive (pre-emptive) doctrine’

In my 2016’s paper titled ‘South Asia’s Nuclear Apartheid,’[17] I had noted five ‘doctrinal shifts’ in India’s January 2003’s ‘Nuclear Principles and Goals’ (a revision of 1998’s policy draft):[18]

1) Moving from finite deterrent posture (minimum deterrence) to credible minimum deterrence – a flexible doctrine that can easily lead to arms race behaviour – for ‘minimum’ can never be quantified in front of enemy’s horizontal (stockpile) proliferation and vertical (qualitative) advancement;

2) Induction of ‘caveats’ to its ‘no-first-use policy,’ keeping it fluid and ambiguous;

3) Use of nuclear weapons in response to biological and chemical weapons attack;

4) Nuclear retaliation, not only against a territorial attack, but also against threat to Indian forces anywhere in the world; and

5) Legitimizing a pre-emptive doctrine. Simulating Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s Osirak reactor in June 1981 and U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 on false pretext of weapons of mass destruction, India too employs proactive operations – a dangerous policy of Cold-Start Doctrine, limited war, or surgical strikes – inviting unknown enemy’s response, both in magnitude as well as in time and space. You may start a war; but it is always your enemy, who ends it.

In Inside Nuclear South Asia, nuclear expert Scott Sagan had concluded: “It is deeply ironic that the Indian government has produced a doctrine that is both less defensive in character and less independent in origin – copying controversial innovations developed in the United States and other nuclear powers – in its effort to be a more ‘responsible nuclear power’ and to add more ‘realism’ to Indian nuclear doctrine.”[19]

India’s ‘Destabilizing Factor’ in Pakistan’s Policy Formulation

Since Pakistan wanted to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear weapon program remains India specific, Pakistan stopped further developing its ballistic missiles after its long range ‘Shaheen-3’ attained a range of 2750km, effectively covering India’s Andaman and Nicobar islands.

However, Pakistan-India outstanding issues and hostilities continue to govern Pakistan’s nuclear policy and posture:

1) First, the unresolved territorial disputes on Kashmir, Siachen and Sir Creek remain a cause of continued conflict;

2) Second, being an upper riparian state, India’s construction of several run-of-the-river projects on Pakistani rivers deny Pakistan its legitimate share of water, adversely affecting the country’s agrarian economy;

3) Third, India’s subversive activities in restive Baluchistan province, as came out through the arrest of a serving naval commander, Kulbhushan Jhadev in March 2016, working for Indian intelligence;

4) Fourth, India’s support to Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) fomenting terrorism in Pakistan; and

5) Lastly, India’s galling audacity to repeatedly carryout cross-border attacks in Pakistan

Former Pakistan army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani had admitted Pakistan Army’s configuration and its deployment based on India’s “capabilities, and not intentions”.

Subcontinent’s Baggage of History

Subcontinent’s historic animosity does not reside in outstanding territorial disputes only; it lays in the socio-cultural ethos of the civilizations too.

As researched by me in my 2018’s paper, ‘The Hindutva Itch: India’s Perverse Strategic Thought,’ a Hindu dominated subcontinent had not only been repeatedly invaded by Central Asian Muslim warriors; it had also been ruled by a Muslim Mughal dynasty from 1526 to 1857.[20]

Thus, an ultra-nationalist right-wing BJP’s Muslim odium comes naturally in its attitudes and beliefs. Adopting the policies of ‘India’s Hinduization’[21] by allowing Muslim lynching, carrying out Muslim identity destruction and purging Muslim vestiges from textbooks, cities, roads and culture, India continues to suffer from its ‘Mahmud of Ghazni complex’ – the 11^th century’s Turkish conqueror who invaded the Indian subcontinent 17 times, smashing Hindu temples and deities, every time.

Moreover, owing to its extremely hot climate, the temperament of the people generally remains fractious, ego-driven, envious and suspecting towards their fellow natives.

In his book Avoiding Armageddon: America, India, and Pakistan to the Brink and Back, Bruce Riedel finds “South Asians … tend to wallow in their history and nurse their traditional animosities … Indians and Pakistanis share the dubious distinction of being nuclear weapons states … hav[ing] an awesome power to destroy. They urgently need to ensure that their actions never lead to Armageddon.”[22]

India’s Erroneous Nuclear Assumptions about Pakistan

Having crossed Pakistan’s redlines twice; boasting to have called Pakistan’s ‘nuclear bluff’ at Balakot, India erroneously became smug about its invincibility.

Whereas, those who know nuclear exchanges and the devastation they unleash keep worrying about the survivability of human race in an event of a nuclear catastrophe. Late Jeffrey Lewis, Director of the East Asia Non-proliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Non-proliferation Studies had seen Balakot as “Night of Murder”: On the Brink of Nuclear War in South Asia.[23]

In the backdrop of India’s Balakot rhetoric of “calling Pakistan’s nuclear bluff, ” General Kidwai had cautioned, “it would be a serious professional folly on their [Indian] part to consider that a single air strike, that too conducted most unprofessionally, would render Pakistan’s robust nuclear deterrence a bluff.”

Speaking at a seminar titled ‘South Asian Strategic Stability: Deterrence, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control’ in March 2020, the general underlined Pakistan’s strategic thought by stating, “Pakistan must shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the vital strategic balance in the conventional and nuclear equation with India as particular determinant of the state of strategic stability in South Asia.”

Thus, India keeps making erroneous assumptions about Pakistan, especially when it comes to employing nuclear weapons during conflict:

1) Retired Indian admiral, Raja Menon, had argued in his 2010’s book ‘The Long View from Delhi: To Define the Indian Grand Strategy for Foreign Policy’ that ‘Pakistani military officers are rational players and would not extend the threat to a point where either side would be forced to switch from conventional to non-conventional weapons;’[24]

2) Secondly, India probably thinks that Pakistan’s rigorous nuclear safety measures could delay Pakistan’s nuclear response to a point where it becomes irrelevant;[25]

3) Third, in light of Pakistan’s enervated response at India’s 2016’s ‘surgical strikes’ and ‘17-minute Balakot molestation,’ India probably assumes an economically crippled Pakistan will keep receiving India’s battering silently, under international pressure;

4) Finally, India’s sudden rise at world stage owing to its global utility to contain China in the Indo-Pacific has given a craving to India to assert its regional hegemony and to demonstrate its military muscle to its new patrons

However, pulling punches above its weight, India saw its military might’s true worth when just a handful of Chinese troops killed 20 Indian soldiers barehanded.

Moreover, an India which keeps aspiring for ‘Akhand Bharat’ (Greater India) – showcasing its mural in the recently inaugurated Indian parliament building – surrendered nearly 900 square kilometre of its sovereign land to China at Ladakh without giving a fight in June 2020.

Vipin Narang (quoted above), a nuclear scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has been warning about India reversing its stated ‘no-first use’ nuclear policy, since 2017.

Analyzing India’s strategic behaviour Narang opined: “India’s opening salvo may not be conventional strikes trying to pick off just Nasr batteries [launch vehicles for Pakistan’s tactical battlefield nuclear warheads] in the theatre, but a full ‘comprehensive counterforce strike’ that attempts to completely disarm Pakistan of its nuclear weapons so that India does not have to engage in iterative tit-for-tat exchanges and expose its own cities to nuclear destruction.”

However, it is no secret a Pakistani nuclear-armed ballistic missile can hit New Delhi within three to seven minutes.

Pakistani generals under President General Pervez Musharraf had furthermore asked the British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Director of Communication, Alistair Campbell, to remind India on his visit on October 5, 2005: “It takes them eight seconds to get the missiles over.”

Finally, in the standoff between the two armies in 2001-02 during India’s Operation Parakram (after an attack on the Indian parliament on December 13, 2001), General Musharraf is on record considering using nuclear option against India.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons’ (TNW) Battlefield Challenge

During the Cold War, the two adversaries – the U.S. and the former Soviet Union – had meticulously strategized TNWs’ employment – which America called ‘The Forbidden Weapon.’ However, Pakistan and India remain alien to the benefits as well as the challenges of short range, low yield weapons:

1) First of all, owing to the two countries close geographical proximity, with millions of civilian population living in the border areas, any use of TNW will cause colossal amount of loss of life and property damage for eons;

2) Secondly, any new weapon system needs to undergo extensive ‘tests, trials and training’ in simulated battlefield environment to evaluate their viability. In view of Pakistan’s continuous terrorist threat with extremely precarious law and order situation, the country cannot afford the luxury of bringing TNWs out in open;

3) Third, Pakistan’s pledge of using the weapons on its own soil – even on its own troops, no matter how protected they are and how patriotic and steadfast they remain under battlefield stress – remains a tall order to execute;

4) Fourth, facing the dilemma of “using it or losing it” in the close proximity of enemy troops would make any (young) military commander jittery to fire the weapon post-haste, losing its efficacy and success;

5) Fifth, the challenge of command and control remains enormous. Similar to pre-delegation of “authority to use” a nuclear weapon to any submarine commander, handing over a “zero-range weapon” to a battlefield commander entails huge risks and perils;

6) Sixth, the “graduated use” of nuclear weapons – from tactical to operational to strategic levels – needs two things: (i) one, a proper understanding of your escalatory ladder by your adversary; and (ii) two, your full knowledge and comprehension of your enemy’s expected response;

7) Lastly, while the strategy of “escalate to de-escalate” remains part of escalatory control mechanism, any use of low-yield nuclear weapon does not guarantee an adversary’s de-escalation

Conclusion

Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) had notable observed, “Fighting preventive wars are like committing suicide for the fear of death.”

However, granted a watchman’s role to safeguard West’s strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific, India is not only trying to assert its hegemony in the region but also striving to impress its new patrons about its political resoluteness, diplomatic dexterity and military prowess.

While India has so far played ‘fixed or choreographed matches’ of cross-border intrusions’ – like Balakot on February 26, 2019 – any meaningful and potent response, like the Chinese troops gave to India on June 16, 2020 at Ladakh will lay bare the inadequacies of Indian military.

An August 2020’s report by Carnegie India had found “[India’s] orthodox offensive doctrine is problematic because, given its powerful adversaries, the Indian Army probably cannot seize significant tracts of land or inflict a decisive defeat on enemy forces.”[26]

Treating it as a political weapon, India, although, sensibly avoids discussing the nuclear matters publicly. However, its hawks bristle at any suggestion of India’s adversaries making doctrinal changes that disadvantage India’s warfare presumptions and calculus.

Notwithstanding Pakistan’s imperatives of deterring India – at tactical, operational and strategic levels – Pakistan needs also to think through, before adopting its “zero-meter vertex” strategy.

In the heat of a battle, when even the standard munitions are hard to handle, the idea of using infantry’s atomic demolition munitions, fissile hand-grenades, shoulder launched nuclear rocket launchers, jeep-mounted radiological recoilless rifles, atomic armour sabots, nuclear mortars and field artillery, and fissile mines remain fanciful and inconceivable.

In the close quarter battle’s context between Pakistan and India, the most powerful weapon remains fiery emotions, raging revulsion, and enraged enmity.

In war, no one is right; only the one who is left. Not so in a nuclear conflagration.

It is incumbent upon the international community to stop both India and Pakistan from teaching each other a terrible lesson – though in turn annihilating the whole subcontinent and becoming uninhabitable too.

Adnan Qaiser, is a foreign affairs expert having had a distinguished career in the armed forces as well as international diplomacy, He can be reached at: [email protected] and Tweets @adnanqaiser01. Views are personal and do not represent any institutional thought.

Subcontinent’s Nuclear Escalation: Pakistan’s ‘Zero Meter Vertex’ Nuclear Doctrine

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