Indian experts criticise its Cold Start doctrine
 

ISLAMABAD: While Pakistan has always viewed India’s Cold Start doctrine as a real threat and gone ahead with building up defensive mechanisms to counter this doctrine, on Wednesday the view from India was that “the Indian Army simply lacks materiel and organisation to implement more aggressive versions of cold start”.

India has been warned that continued loose talk of the so-called cold start doctrine puts “South Asia in the unfortunate situation that it may be the next case, and this time with nuclear ******* in the mix”.

These views from New Delhi come in the wake of unusual media activity that the new Indian army chief General Bipin Rawat has been involved in and in which he boasted of taking on China and Pakistan simultaneously while emphasising the use of cold start.

“It is **t at all clear, for example, that the Indian Army at present possesses sufficient superiority in number of troops and armoured vehicles in the vicinity of the international border to be able to overcome the Pakistan Army’s defensive and geographic advantages in a short conflict. Indeed, the large number of obsolete tanks and artillery pieces, **t to mention critical shortages of ammunition and air-defence assets, raises serious questions about the army’s ability to implement a cold start-style operation at all,” write Walter C Ladwig at King’s College London and Vipin Narang at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech**logy in The Hindu.

Earlier, US President Obama had urged both India and Pakistan to stop moving in the wrong direction as they develop their military doctrines. Experts in their column in The Hindu add that the term cold start has thus become one of the Indian army’s biggest liabilities.

“The perception that its most aggressive form exists is the gift that keeps on giving to the Pakistan Army, which uses it to justify a rapid expansion of its conventional and nuclear forces,” the writers **te.

Pakistan’s former Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) Chairman General Tariq Majid recently **ted, “Leave alone China, General Deepak Kapoor k**ws very well what the Indian army can**t and the Pakistan Army can pull off militarily…the Indian army chief could **t be so outlandish in strategic postulations to fix India on a self-destruct mechanism.”

Earlier, a**ther expert had told the media, “It would be a very dangerous assumption to enact cold start with a hope to dominate escalation and keep such a war limited and under nuclear threshold. Cold start can lead to hot wars.”

Walter and Vipin asked the Indian army and government to identify operational and strategic objectives of the doctrine and how it would fit into the country’s strategic objectives. The writers pointed out that ‘reviving’ cold start may “markedly escalate tensions in bilateral relations with Pakistan without necessarily delivering a clear benefit, since there is still ** evidence that India has the required capabilities to implement anything resembling cold start”.

They also questioned the fact that Indian Air Force lacks the kind of close air support capability cold start would require, but army-air force cooperation is also beset by inter-service dysfunction.

Asking whether the government has given Gen Rawat political authorisation to speak, the writers **te, “This has put India in the worst possible strategic position: claiming a capability that it does **t have, but which provides justification for Pakistan’s aggressive expansion of its conventional and nuclear forces. Such an approach has rarely served a nation’s security interests.”

In any case, Pakistan is **t ready to lower its guard as former army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani famously once said, “It is **t India’s intentions but its capabilities that we have to watch out for.”





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