[Defence] Cold Start Doctrine

Cold Start Doctrine

What is Cold start doctrine?

·        In conventional Military power, India far superior than Pakistanis.

·        But Paki got nuke bomb and proxy war tools. So conventional military power faces some limitations.

·        So, India developed “cold start” offensive doctrine- it is not ‘official’ but experts believe it exists.

·        Cold start doctrine involves following:

Ø     Limited BUT Precise strikes in enemy state to prevent (nuclear) retaliation.

Ø     Capture small but strategic territories in Pakistan- which can be traded for concessions later on.

Why Cold Start?

·        Cold start saves a country from the limitations of conventional military mobilization or “massed offensive doctrine”.  Let’s understand with “Operation Parakram”

·        Dec 13, 2001: Terrorists attack Indian Parliament. Indian responds with “Operation Parakram”- full military mobilization at border for 10 months from January to October 2002.

Operation Parakram: Full military deployment
Good	Bad
Boosted morale of army	Took almost a month to mobilize entire army. Such time-lag helps Enemy approach UN or foreign ally for help and reinforcements.
Terrorist infiltration declined significantly, due to heavy military presence at border.	India lacked the “next step” or “exit plan” After Op. Parakram. Government did not want a full scale war with Pakistan and 10-month deployment cost thousands of crores.
Pak sponsored terrorism came under international media scrutiny	Godhara riots (2002) opened a new front and India too came under international media scrutiny. It became difficult for Government to focus on two fronts- internal riots and border tension.
	Pakistan got a convenient excuse for nuclear proliferation i.e. India threatens us by posting entire army on border, so we need truckload of nukes to “deter” them.
	India awaited US response. But they did not reveal the cards for a long time. Further escalating costs without result.

Moral of the story

·        Coercive diplomacy and full military mobilization are not the perfect tools for Indo-Pak situation.

·        Cold start / surgical strikes / punitive actions are ideal tools against Pakis.

·        2004: Indian army has adopted “limited war doctrine”.

·        Though India doesn’t officially acknowledge cold start doctrine but recent military exercise prove that it exists- for example: Operation Vijayee Bhava (2011), Operation Sudarshan Shakti (2011).

Cold Start: Benefits/ pro-arguments

·        Stops enemy from nuclear attack.

·        Creates an operation tempo- once Cold start begins, Political leaders can’t halt it.

·        Completes Indian objective before UN/USA/international community intervenes.

Cold start: limitations / anti arguments

·        To counter India’s Cold start, Pakis will develop small and portable nuke weapons because they can be transported / hidden easily.

·        But given ISI-nexus, terrorists can grab such weapons.

·        Then it’ll be far more difficult to stop nuke attacks on Indian cities.

·        After 26/11/2008 attack on Mumbai, India did not launch cold start attack on Pakistan. Two interpretation:

à Cold start is “Theoretical exercise”, and Real world application will either fail or give mixed result, hence Government did not try. OR

à Without political will, no doctrine can succeed.

·        Point 4 leads to next limitation: Cold start only envisages “what we will do” but there is no plan on : “when we will do it?” e.g. after ___ no. of Indians are killed by a single terrorist attack /ceasefire violation, then we’ll definitely erase all nuclear facilities in Pakistan.

·        Some experts believe India’s Cold Start doctrine is “army-centric” because the three Indian defense services don’t have robust ‘joint-structures’ for coordination. So, in real-life scenario, Cold-start will be a fail.

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