AIR MARSHAL B.D.JAYAL (Retd.) PVSM,AVSM,VM and Bar

The entire question of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) is complex in the extreme. The spectrum it covers is from the moral and emotional to the very existence of life on the planet, with national security being at the core. What must hearten students of Indian security is that for the first time a Government has published a security paper for debate before it is finally considered for adoption as a national doctrine. It also follows that the final doctrine will only be as sound as the depth of debate preceding it. The onus for this must rest with all those who wish to participate in this crucial debate.

Background

Late in 1998, the Government announced its intention to put in place a National Security Council and its supporting structures of a Strategic Policy Group (SPG) and the National Security Advisory Board (NSAB). The task of the SPG was to provide inter ministerial co ordination and conduct strategic reviews .The NSAB was to provide long term prognosis, analysis and solutions to policy issues referred to it.

One had hoped that the SPG would first conduct a Strategic Defence Review based on which the NSC would evolve its policy for national security. Flowing from such a policy would follow strategies to be evolved by all concerned ministries including the Ministry of Defence (MOD).The Armed Forces would then draw on the defence strategy to evolve their force development objectives, training, re equipment and operational plans.

Had this sequence of events taken place, India would for the first time have graduated from a purely ad hoc approach to security to a clearly planned and integrated one. All long and short term measures concerning national security issues could then be focussed towards clearly defined national strategic objectives. Instead, the draft ‘Indian Nuclear Doctrine’ prepared by the NSAB has officially been released for debate. Since one has not heard of a SDR and a consequent national security policy, it would appear that the doctrine has been prepared in isolation. Evolving a nuclear doctrine , even in draft form, prior to an overall national security policy is putting the cart before the horse. There is then a tendency to fall into the old trap of planning for worst case scenarios, not being able to afford the outcome and landing between two stools.

The Doctrine

The draft doctrine ‘outlines the broad principles for the development, deployment and employment of India’s nuclear forces’. While the unclassified version is brief, this in all probability is backed by a more detailed classified document for discussion and comment within the security establishment. It is therefore possible that some of the observations made in this paper have been adequately covered in the classified portion. They are never- the -less relevant from the point of view of an open debate.

No first use

The most crucial of all decisions viz. the policy of ‘no first use’ was announced soon after Pokhran II . Little has been written on the security imperatives that led to this decision. Having made this decision, the nation is committed to a reactive nuclear policy. That of having to absorb a nuclear strike before being able to react with nuclear weapons. To India , the benefits of this policy could only be two. The first is diplomatic in that it announces to the world the purely defensive nature of the country’s nuclear posture and its commitment not to be the first to engage in the use of such weapons . The second is military in terms of attempting to raise the threshold of a nuclear exchange in times of crises.

To consider the diplomatic side first. Of the nuclear states, only China is committed to this policy. But having transferred missiles in contravention of its MTCR obligations, how seriously can one expect it to abide by its self imposed policy ? Specially when issues like Taiwan and its other territorial claims rear their head. No other nuclear state is committed to ‘no first use’. Recently there has been unofficial debate on the merits of such a policy within the US, but even this debate only began when there was no clear threat to the territorial integrity of the US. India’s security concerns on the other hand are vastly different. It has major border disputes with two nuclear neighbours ,with one of them sponsoring a low intensity conflict and open terrorism within the country in clear violation of international norms. The latter comes close to being classified a terrorist state!

The military price that one pays may, however, far outweigh the diplomatic benefits. Absorbing a first strike makes guaranteed survivability of one’s retaliatory nuclear assets an imperative. The burden on the resulting infrastructure, delivery systems, force levels and cost consequences that follow are surely not quantifiable at this time. And the magnitude of which is bound to be so substantial that it should not have been ignored in formulation of any doctrine. An even more important issue is that of national will. The public would want to know which are the likely targets and would need to be assured of the extent of the passive defence measures that will be needed/available to reduce civilian casualties ? Which cities will need/get such protection ? What will be the extent of medical support needed/provided to absorb a strike ? What precisely will be the post strike disaster plans ? These are perhaps questions that have not even been considered in any depth, let alone their answers formulated. With such grey areas, will the Indian nation through which the Government and the security forces derive the strength to fight, summon the courage to even face a future conventional conflict ? And having been struck first and faced with a catastrophe of this magnitude and no doubt accompanied by international pressure not to escalate, will national morale hold and the nation summon the will to retaliate ?

These are no more hypothetical questions, but ones that must form the basis for any doctrine formulation. There are no easy answers. Any policy as far reaching as this should be preceded with public education, national debate and devoid of subjectivity. Till then the policy of ‘no first use’ should have remained a desirable milestone on the way to total disarmament into the future. Not one to have been the bedrock of national nuclear doctrine which now has to be tailored to meet this self imposed obligation.The doctrine states rather simplistically that ‘deterrence requires that India maintain the will to employ nuclear forces and weapons’. The basis for such wishful hope is not known.

Credible Minimum Nuclear Deterrence

The doctrine states that ‘India shall pursue a doctrine of credible minimum nuclear deterrence’. A doctrine of deterrence is based on the premise that one’s capability to retaliate is adequate enough for the adversary to conclude that a first strike by him will invite retaliation that would cause unacceptable damage. Hence the adversary will refrain from taking the first strike step. Deterrence means that the adversary’s thought process is analytical in that he will take into account India’s ability to absorb a first strike and respond , assess the damage of this response , superimpose it on his own aims and objectives and then make a value judgement on whether the risks of a first strike are worth taking or not, in the first place.

By accepting the doctrine of deterrence, it implies that one is confident of the rationality of the adversary’s thought process. In itself a very dangerous and self denuding assumption on which to base one’s entire doctrine. There is adequate evidence in the world, of States that choose not to abide by international norms and some of whom are being termed as rogue states. Then there are those that sponsor and export terrorism in flagrant violation of international behaviour. Such leaders believe in irrationality as their hallmark. Would they respond to the logic of deterrence as India chooses to understand or define it ?

The key to the deterrence logic is that all players in the nuclear game abide by its rationality and act accordingly. Even if one player thinks differently, we run the risk of nuclear weapons becoming instruments of war rather than those of deterrence. The lessons that the world learnt during the ‘cold war’ face off between the Super powers are too important to be over looked .Unlike in conventional warfare where India has expertise and knowledge to chart its own course, in areas relating to nuclear weapons’ philosophy, one can only draw lessons from the experience of those that have tread the dangerous nuclear weapon path.

It is revealing to hear what Gen. Lee Butler, who commanded the USAF Strategic Command and who is now an ardent supporter of nuclear disarmament has to say. Quote. "Deterrence in the Cold War setting was fatally flawed at the most fundamental level of human psychology in its projection of western reason through the crazed lens of a paranoid foe. Little wonder that intentions and motives were consistently misread. Little wonder that deterrence was the first victim of a deepening crisis, leaving the antagonists to grope fearfully in a fog of mutual misperception. While we clung to the notion that nuclear war could be reliably deterred, Soviet leaders derived from their historical experience the conviction that such a war might be thrust upon them, and if so, must not be lost. Driven by that fear, they took Herculean measures to fight and survive no matter the odds or the cost. Deterrence was a dialogue of the blind with the deaf. In the final analysis, it was largely a bargain we in the West made with ourselves. Deterrence was flawed equally in that the consequences of its failure were intolerable."_ Unquote. Except for the players being different and the cold war being a thing of the past, these comments will continue to have relevance so long as the world is not free of nuclear weapons.

How does the doctrine propose to address the credibility problem is not defined. Assuming for example that the potential aggressor assesses that India’s arsenal is not as accurate or large or as capable as India professes. Or if he chooses to believe that he can cripple India’s nuclear capability by his first strike .In his eyes, right or wrong, India’s deterrence is either not credible or can be neutralized. Like deterrence, credibility is also related to the potential aggressor’s judgement, not one’s own. There is a similar contradiction in defining the term of minimum. While this level will obviously be determined by India, the level should actually depend on the potential adversary’s assessment of it being adequate to make the retaliatory response unacceptable! And there is no way of knowing this!

Many of these are philosophical questions. But when the survival of mankind is at stake, when consequences of actions today will adversely affect the lives of millions many generations from now, cold military or strategic logic is not armed to face the problem in all its awesome complexity. Sociological, psychological and mass human behavioural expertise must also have a say. This is the dilemma for those responsible for national security with a nuclear arsenal.

An alternative to the doubtful philosophy of deterrence could be the doctrine of a ‘minimum nuclear force’. Based on the national security policy and the various security options evolved , it is up to India to determine what constitutes as minimum and the content of the force in terms of numbers and platforms. It also denies potential aggressors the benefit of choosing the time and place to strike first. This needs to be weighed against the possibility of a nuclear strike over a large Indian city with attendant chaos and degradation of national will. With the best will in the world, a nation faced with such a trauma may well buckle and lose the will to retaliate. There are no easy answers, but one thing is sure. Having stepped into the nuclear arena, India needs to shed its attitude of a soft state and not be apologetic of its perceived security compulsions. If that calls for threat of use of nuclear force-so be it. The obvious drawback of this approach is that it could lower the nuclear threshold.

On the issue of the danger of either an accidental or unauthorized launch , this is what a nuclear command and control specialist has said "This is the nuclear surety problem: making sure nuclear weapons are always ready for use when needed, but never detonated accidentally or by unauthorized persons. " _ This logic can be extrapolated to a situation where one of the sides launches in an effort to beat the other, thus lowering the threshold. All regional nuclear powers have a vital stake in not unleashing these weapons by mistake or lowering the threshold. It is crucial for these powers to mutually discuss modalities and introduce mutually agreed safeguards. These will need to be in terms of hot lines and defined procedures .It is the ironical logic of nuclear weapons that they enforce the need for potential adversaries to keep communications open for mutual benefit of all. Logic borne out of the fact that these are weapons never intended to be used. The Indian doctrine does recognize this when it says ‘in view of the very high destructive potential of nuclear weapons, appropriate nuclear risk reduction and confidence building measures shall be sought, negotiated and instituted.’

Peacetime Posture

The doctrine states that India’s peacetime posture aims at convincing any potential aggressor that any nuclear attack on India and its forces shall result in punitive retaliation with nuclear weapons to inflict damage unacceptable to the aggressor. Again, for this logic of deterrence to work, the potential aggressor would have to be aware of the quality, extent and targets of India’s retaliation. Only then would he be able to make an analysis and determine whether it is worth risking a first strike. Would India be willing to define its nuclear response and the target list in advance? Not likely, thus leading to a breakdown of the logic of deterrence due to ‘unacceptable damage’.

The doctrine is silent on the state of alert and preparedness of the nuclear forces during peace time. Similarly, the reaction time from peace to fully employable state is not clearly defined. These have a vital bearing on virtually every aspect of the nuclear force, not least of all on their manning and recurring costs. While this may well form part of the classified document, in fairness to the concept of a healthy debate this should have been indicated. What’s more, for the logic of deterrence to apply, potential adversaries should know of this in unambiguous terms.

All the above arguments are compounded by the fact that the nuclear doctrine states that ‘India will not resort to use or threat of use of nuclear weapons against States which do not possess nuclear weapons, or are not aligned with nuclear weapon powers’. This still leaves a long list of those that could fall in the category facing an Indian nuclear response. The rationality, thought process and indeed tolerance threshold of each would be different. ‘ Minimum credible’ would then have to cater to perceptions of different States. Not an easy task for those entrusted with nuclear force planning !

Nuclear Forces

Once the policy of absorbing a first strike has been established, it naturally follows that India’s nuclear forces must have a guaranteed degree of survivability to retaliate. For delivery systems the triad principle is what the Superpowers have followed and it is this that India’s doctrine proposes. It is revealing to hear what Stephen I. Schwartz has to say in his study . Quote. " But the triad as we know it was not the result of any sort of systematic plan. It simply evolved as the Air Force and the Navy (the Army was effectively prevented from competing in the strategic arena) built weapons in no small measure to deny the budgetary advantage to each other. As former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger said almost a quarter century ago, the rationale for the triad is "just a rationalization."

Considering that for India, submarine based capability is still many years away, one had hoped that a credible force would be based on aircraft and missiles. Even from the affordability point of view this would appear credible.

Similarly, the survivability and response capability should be such that any potential adversary is convinced of the diversity, dispersal and hardness of the nuclear forces, their C4I2 set up and the ground infrastructure. This means more of everything. The most crucial is the question of affordability. By opting for the worst case scenario, India is opting for a route that is fraught with economic consequences of a magnitude that are clearly unaffordable. Copying the Western philosophy conflicts with the Indian doctrine of ‘minimum’.

India will need to evolve unique models flowing from the national security policy and keeping the nation’s affordability criteria in mind. Planning for worst case scenarios is not an affordable option even for conventional warfare leave alone nuclear forces. The most glaring weakness of the doctrine appears to be its idealism in the face of obvious national limitations. This one weakness may make the entire exercise theoretical.

No mention has been made in the doctrine of tactical nuclear weapons. Like all aspects of the nuclear debate, this is also a complex issue. One wonders if this is due to keeping the Army’s sensitivity in mind ! But one would like to know the planned response in the event of first use of a tactical nuclear weapon against India . Will it still elicit a punitive response ? Will this be of a strategic or tactical nature ? If tactical, then issues of command and control become even more complex. It is perhaps interesting again to read what Stephen I. Schwartz has to say on the US Army’s foray into nuclear weapons before they were finally withdrawn in 1991 by a Presidential order. Quote "……the other reason was that the Army, seeing that the Air Force, and particularly the Strategic Air Command, was receiving a larger and larger share of the military budget, sought to capture some of these funds for itself. The Army therefore proposed and implemented plans for an array of nuclear weapons and only after these were deployed began to concern itself with how they might actually be used to defend Europe or the United States from the Soviet threat. What they discovered was that nuclear weapons, far from being cost-efficient killing machines, were in fact immensely expensive."

Availability of tactical nuclear weapons creates an unacceptable risk of use followed by uncontrolled escalation. India’s doctrine should have declared that it will not deploy tactical weapons. Coupled with these declarations should be a clear rider that the country does not believe in the philosophy of graded nuclear response. Use of any nuclear weapon against India, tactical or strategic, will elicit an appropriate response.

Command and Control

The higher defence organization as currently existing in India is perhaps unique for a democracy. The three Service HQs are not a part of the Ministry of Defence, but outside of it. The Service Chiefs do not exercise the powers of a Secretary to the Government. This vests all powers relating to finance, procurement , promotion and postings of senior officers with the MOD. Yet operational accountability rets with the Service Chiefs. Operationally, there is no Combined Defence Staff concept to jointly plan for and execute operations.

The requirements of the doctrine of ‘unity of command and control of nuclear forces, of an integrated operational plan and of an effective and survivable command and control system with requisite flexibility and responsiveness’, will sound hollow unless the existing weaknesses in the higher defence organization are first rectified. One wishes that the doctrine had emphasised this point. Foremost, India will need to guard against inter service rivalry. The examples given earlier are ample testimony to the internal damage that can be caused by inter-service one-up-manship.

The doctrine should have defined the organization structure for the nuclear forces as this has a direct bearing on aspects of C4I2. Will it be under the MOD ? Will it be a Strategic Command ? If so, which service will control it ? Where will the Intelligence Services fit in ? These and many more seemingly trivial questions of organization , command and control that find no mention in the doctrine, create serious misgivings on the practicality of operationalizing the doctrine. With reluctance to address these issues, even the best theoretical concepts will run aground in the bureaucratic maze of Indian governance.

Similarly, the need for survivability of C4I2, the ability to operate in an NBC environment and requirement of space based assets are not specific to the evolving nuclear scenario. These are capabilities that are central to existing armed forces in the context of conventional warfare. That the Indian forces are devoid of even basic surveillance and communication equipment merely highlights the gap that exists between what is available and what the doctrine visualizes for a nuclear force. A credible nuclear C4I2 system can only come into being once the archaic and somewhat outdated systems currently in place with the conventional forces are first modernized. The doctrine should have commented on this aspect.

Affordability

An essential input to security planning relates to the criteria of affordability. Devoid of this , doctrines and planning lose their meaning. Because of the flawed higher defence organization and lack of integrated military planning, Indian defence budgets have traditionally been distributed between the three services in percentages that have historical rather than operational significance. Each service plans for the worst case scenario and presents its needs and requirements. The budget can not support these requirements. Since the budgeting and accounting systems are accounting based rather than operational based, no meaningful operational trade offs are possible. Consequently there has been a perceptible decline in the level of modernization and operational readiness of the services as even a small border skirmish recently demonstrated.

At the doctrine stage it is not possible to get even a feel for final recurring and non recurring costs. One can only look at the experience of those that have followed the tortuous route at least to get a feel for the figures to determine whether India’s doctrine is being formulated in a real world or in an economic vacuum ! In such a scenario, where does the doctrine fit ? Where will the resources come from ? Is their magnitude even broadly known? Will Indian bureaucracy understand that the nuclear game is an ‘all or nothing’ affair. You can’t say, take the missiles, but wait for communication equipment! After all it is the same mindset that has denied the Air Force a Trainer for fifteen years while allowing purchase of Su 30s. It would be premature to even talk of costs when details of policy and strategy concerning force structures, deployment and employment of nuclear forces are yet to be worked out.

Recent Project findings by Stephen I.Schwartz called ‘Hidden Costs of Our Nuclear Arsenal’sponsored by the Brookings Institution have after a four year painstaking research revealed that the total cost of the US nuclear weapons program between 1940 and 1996 came to $5.5 trillion (in 1996 dollars). The cost of the warheads themselves amounted to only 7.4 percent ($409 billion) of the total. This at least gives an indication that it is not the warheads but the delivery and supporting infrastructure that needs the maximum resources. It is true that India is not the US and these are costs over a fifty year period covering a multitude of warheads and delivery systems, anti missile systems and of cleaning up nuclear wastes. The point is that even in the US, there was no comprehension of the combined costs of these programmes. It is only now that private research is beginning to highlight the magnitude of costs. India can not afford to take a route without understanding the economic consequences in advance. This is perhaps the lesson from the US experience.

Conclusion

The Indian Nuclear Doctrine is severely restrained by the policy guideline of ‘no first use’, to the danger that the final posture may either be unaffordable or lack credibility. The doctrine of deterrence and its rationale in an ever increasing environment of rogue states and international terrorism also appears weak. Within these constraints while the doctrine is clear and explicit in what it wants, it is ambitious to the extreme. While theoretically, it follows some of the logic and the essentials that the cold war adversaries followed, it is woefully short in its application to the Indian context. The doctrine lacks innovativeness.

It is silent on important aspects like tactical weapons and peace time readiness. It is silent on the organizational and operational command and control structure. No structure will work unless the existing system itself is rationalized. Similarly, unless the present state of modernization of the services is improved, the infrastructural needs spelt out in the doctrine can not be met. Without estimates of cost it is difficult to comprehend whether the Indian economy can afford and implement this doctrine operationally.