Cold Start (military doctrine)

Indian Army भारतीय थलसेना
Flag of the Indian Army
Founded	1 April 1895
Country	India
Type	Army
Size	1,325,000 active personnel 960,000 reserve personnel & 104 aircraft
Part of	Indian Armed Forces
Headquarters	DHQ Zone
Motto	"Service Before Self"
Colours	Gold, red and black
Website	Official Website of the Indian Army
Commanders
Chief of the Army Staff (COAS)	General Dalbir Singh Suhag
Vice Chief of the Army Staff (VCOAS)	Lt Gen MMS Rai
Notable commanders	Field Marshal K M Cariappa Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw General K S Thimayya
Aircraft flown
Helicopter	HAL Rudra
Transport	HAL Dhruv, HAL Chetak, HAL Cheetah and Cheetal

Cold Start is a military doctrine developed by the Indian Armed Forces for use in a possible war with Pakistan. It involves the various branches of India's military conducting offensive operations as part of unified battle groups. The Cold Start doctrine is intended to allow India's conventional forces to perform holding attacks in order to prevent a nuclear retaliation from Pakistan in case of a conflict.

Origins

India's defence strategy from 1947 was, in the words of former defence minister George Fernandes, “a non-aggressive, non-provocative defense policy,” centred around "holding corps" to halt hostile advances. In response to the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, India initiated a full mobilisation. Taking almost a month, the slow mobilisation demonstrated the weakness of India's then current policy. The long mobilisation time resulted in sufficient international pressure preventing India from conducting a retaliatory strike.

Sundarji Doctrine (1981–2004)

The Sundarji Doctrine was made up of seven defensive "holding corps" of the Indian Army and deployed near the Pakistani border. Possessing limited offensive power, the holding corps' primary responsibility was to check a Pakistani advance. India's offensive potency was derived from the "strike corps," which were made up of a mechanised infantry and extensive artillery support. "Unlike the holding corps that was deployed close to the border," argues Walter Ladwig of the University of Oxford, "the strike corps was based in central India, a significant distance from the international border. In a war, after the holding corps halted a Pakistani attack, the strike corps would counterattack, penetrating deep into Pakistani territory to destroy the Pakistan Army's own strike corps through 'deep sledgehammer blows' in a high-intensity battle of attrition."

However, the limitation of the Sundarji doctrine was exposed on 13 December 2001, when five masked men attacked the Indian Parliament. Twelve people—including the five gunmen—were killed and 22 were injured. India was quick to blame Pakistani-sponsored militant groups because just two months earlier, a similar assault was carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad on the Kashmir state assembly. India received credible evidence that Pakistani-sponsored militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad were behind the attack, prompting India to initiate Operation Parakram, the largest activation of its forces since the 1971 Bangladesh war.

It took the Indian strike corps three weeks to get to the international border. During that time Pakistan was able to counter-mobilize and allow for intervening powers—the United States in particular—to become an intermediary to the conflict. Urging India to restrain, the American Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, demanded that India wait until President Pervez Musharraf delivered a speech that would address the crisis. Musharraf's speech was quick to denounce terrorism generally, and militant groups operating in Kashmir specifically, promising a crackdown. "As a result of Musharraf's declaration, by the time the [Indian] strike corps reached the border region, India's political justification for military action had been significantly reduced," Walter C. Ladwig maintains.

Indian military strategists came to the conclusion that the Sundarji doctrine was flawed. It was too inflexible to respond to terrorist attacks or other indirect challenges, for three reasons: The strike corps was too big and too far away from the international border, making it difficult to deploy in a timely fashion. Second, the long duration needed to mobilize the strike corps prevented strategic surprise, allowing Pakistan plenty of time to counter-mobilize. Third, the holding corps' lack of offensive power along the international border prevented it from engaging in significant offensives.

Doctrine development

Arjun MBT conducting driving test on sand berms.

The development of this doctrine represents a significant change in Indian defence planning. Exercises aimed at reducing mobilisation time and improved network-centric warfare capabilities have contributed to the development of the Cold Start doctrine. Despite the advances, this doctrine remains in the experimental stage.

The doctrine, known as Cold Start, deviated from the defence posture that India’s military had employed since independence in 1947. “The goal of this limited war doctrine is to establish the capacity to launch a retaliatory conventional strike against Pakistan that would inflict significant harm on the Pakistan Army before the international community could intercede, and at the same time, pursue narrow enough aims to deny Islamabad a justification to escalate the clash to the nuclear level."

Drawing on the experience of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War as well as the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, Indian defence planners envisioned a new doctrine. It would involve limited, rapid armoured thrusts, with infantry and necessary air support.

As per Cold Start promulgation, offensive operations could begin within 48 hours after orders have been issued. Such a limited response time would enable Indian forces to surprise their Pakistani counterparts. Operations would involve armoured spearheads launched from forward positions in Punjab and Rajasthan.

The plan emphasises speed and overwhelming firepower: armored formations and accompanying infantry would advance into eastern Pakistan with limited goals in terms of distance and in terms of duration. The plan reportedly has a significant air support component. From the Indian perspective, the plan has the added virtue of accentuating Pakistani discomfiture and angst, which in theory may have some deterrent value.

India's official stance

India denies having a cold start strategy. Quoting the Indian Army chief: "There is nothing called 'Cold Start'. As part of our overall strategy we have a number of contingencies and options, depending on what the aggressor does. In the recent years, we have been improving our systems with respect to mobilization, but our basic military posture is defensive."

In January 2011, while speaking to the media in the run-up to Army Day, Army chief General V K Singh came closer than any other government official, while describing the widely speculated Indian war doctrine popularly referred to as Cold Start. "There is nothing like Cold Start. But we have a 'proactive strategy' which takes steps in a proactive manner so that we can achieve what our doctrines and strategies," he said.

Former Indian defence minister Jaswant Singh has denied the existence of the doctrine, stating, "There is no Cold Start doctrine. No such thing. It was an off-the-cuff remark from a former chief of staff. I have been defense minister of the country. I should know."

Despite these assertions, in recent years the Indian army has conducted a series of major combat exercises-- including the recent 'Brahmashira' exercise by the 2 'Kharga' Strike Corps in Rajasthan -- to practice "swift multiple offensives deep into enemy territory" under its "Pro-Active Conventional War Strategy."

Pakistan's response

The Chairman joint chiefs of Pakistan military declared 2010 the "Year of Training", conducting a large scale joint-military exercise named Azm-e-Nau–III which focused on offensive defence against Cold Start. The military also tested the Nasr, a nuclear-capable missile from the family of Hatf-IX missiles with a purported range of 60 km, high accuracy and a shoot-and-scoot delivery system. The Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses stated that the development of the Nasr indicates that Pakistan views Cold Start with concern and that the missile was meant to deter India's implementation of the doctrine. It added that the net result would be "further nuclear impact(s) on Pakistan's territory".

Validation of doctrine

In May 2011, India launched Operation Vijayee Bhava ("Be Victorious"), a defence exercise involving 50,000 troops in Bikaner and Suratgarh near the border with Pakistan in order to boost the synergy between the various branches of the armed forces.

The main objective of the operation was to cut down the mobilisation time of the military, which took 27 days to mobilise during Operation Parakram. The Indian Army confirmed that the exercise was successful, reducing mobilisation time drastically to 48 hours.

In July 2011, India tested the Prahaar, a new solid-fuel tactical ballistic missile with a range of 150 km designed to provide invading Indian Army battle groups with lethal fire support.

Later that year, the Indian Army conducted its largest war games in the last two decades, titled Operation Sudarshan Shakti under the Southern Command Headquarters, to revalidate its Cold Start doctrine. The desert exercise was based on the Integrated Theatre Battle concept, where various defence wings and military elements have to participate in a single cohesive format during war.

The focus of Sudarshan Shakti was to practice synergy and integration between ground and air forces. Nearly 60,000 troops and 500 armoured vehicles, including T-72, T-90 and Arjun main battle tanks, carried out simulated assaults on their objectives, with support from artillery and the Indian Air Force.

The Indian military has also tested newly inducted radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, surveillance systems, precision guided bombs, missiles, space-based assets and real-time data-sharing between elements.

Criticism

The Cold Start doctrine has invited criticism from Pakistani media and former generals who claim that although the doctrine was designed to punish Pakistan in a limited manner without triggering nuclear retaliation, the Indian Army cannot be sure if Pakistan's leadership will, in fact, refrain from such a response.

Criticism of this doctrine by Tim Roemer, US Ambassador to India from 2009 to 2011, was revealed in a leaked cable. Roemer gave a detailed explanation of the doctrine, followed by several facts which he believed raised questions about the actual application of doctrine. He raised questions about New Delhi's willingness to pursue the option, including the decision not to implement the doctrine after the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks. Some of the claims he made included that India would likely encounter "mixed results", that Cold Start is "a mixture of myth and reality" and that "the value of the doctrine to the GOI (Government of India) may lie more in the plan’s existence than in any real world application".

Walter Ladwig has suggested that a host of factors, including terrain, the favorable deployment of Pakistani forces, and a lack of strategic surprise in the most likely conflict scenarios, will mitigate whatever mobilization advantages India may be gaining through its experimentation with Cold Start.

Post 2008 Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

Through intelligence intercepts and analysis carried out during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, Indian planners had assessed that the ongoing attack was likely a deliberate attempt by the ISI sponsored terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba to provoke an Indian military strike on Pakistan; the objective being to entice other Islamist Pakistani militant groups that were engaged in armed conflict with the Pakistani state to redirect their attacks away from the Pakistani state and instead unify against an external threat, namely India. Consequently, in order to defeat the strategic goals of the Pakistani planners of the Mumbai massacre, India decided to hold off launching a punitive military strike on Pakistan. This assessement was later verified by interrogations and court testimony of one of the Pakistani planners of the massacre, David Headley while in custody of US and Indian authorities.

Impact

In a manner similar to the way the United States' "Star Wars" programme impacted the economy of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, The threat of the Indian Cold Start doctrine and increase in Indian Defence Budget from $24 Billion to $40 Billion between 2007 and 2009 has apparently prompted the Pakistan government to sharply increase its defence budget to 32% of their federal government's net revenue receipts, further increasing the strain on that country's already tenuous economy. In 2009, financial constraints on budget and realizing the effects on national economy, the Pakistan government officials began working on the database program that they describe as "Threat Matrix", it was revealed in 2013 in a press conference.

Further reading

• A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army’s New Limited War Doctrine by Walter C. Ladwig III
• Indian Military Modernization and Conventional Deterrence in South Asia by Walter C. Ladwig III
• How India’s Cold Start is making the world a safer place