Cold Start or a Cold Myth?

If there was ever a need, the Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) of India's damning reports on the depleted state of Indian military's readiness took the hot-air out of the myth of Pakistan Army specific 'Cold-Start Doctrine' (CSD). If CAG reports weren`t damaging enough, recent media reports of its feeble condition have made it the laughing stock. Rundown condition of the its legacy hardware has taken the sting out of its numerical superiority; a far cry from an aggressive strategy of the CSD.

Some years ago, in an attempt to leverage its conventional superiority over Pakistan, the Indian Army announced a new offensive doctrine. The doctrine envisioned a quick mobilization of Indian strike formations without giving away battle indicators. In a 2004 military exercise, with a huge fanfare, live fire demonstrations and allot of ata-boy pats on their own backs, the doctrine was declared a complete success.

In strategic terms, CSD was conceived to box the Indian civilian-leadership into committing into a Blitzkrieg like offensive operations. The Indian military believes long mobilizations give enough time to the Pakistani patrons like USA and China to mobilize world opinion against any military action. They believe, their political leadership easily succumbs to the world pressure, and in the process denies the military its due share of victories. Therefore, at least in theory, the new war doctrine would have lowered the threshold for the leadership to pull the trigger from the outset.

However, the rapidly deteriorating health and legendry unreliability of the Indian military hardware severally handicapped the maturation of otherwise a brilliant strategy. CSD was basically an attempt to copy NATO's "come as you are" war doctrine. It was an integration of three levels. At the top was 'Combat Command'. The Combat Command headquarters commanded the 'Battle Groups', consisting of armored regiment and mechanized infantry battalions. The Battle Groups were integrated with the attack helicopters of Army Aviation and Air Force squadrons for close support, heavy air-lift and surveillance. At the bottom were the 'Combat Teams'; something on the lines of US Army Airborne Rangers.

Similarly, the Indian Cold Start Doctrine too was constructed around the idea of rapid mobilization of the Special Forces and mechanized strike formations supported by the attack helicopters and ground attack squadrons. This necessitated the relocation of formation headquarters from central India to the forward positions of Barmer, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, and Suratgarh sectors. It also called for 70 dedicated Indian Air Force (IAF) squadrons for close air support. Additionally, the Indian Navy's aviation was to support the diversionary amphibious operations to force Pakistan to fight on several different fronts.

Executing such extremely fluid and complex manures would have been next to impossible without a highly sophisticated C4I (Command & Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence) network or Net-centric. In theory, the system optimizes resource management for the battle commanders by funneling information of a continuously-evolving complex community of people, devices, information and services onto a single platform. However, even the Americans are still trying to debug and streamline a functional Net-centric system. In India's case, with the exception of the intelligence feed every other piece of Net-centric system is still decades away from becoming a reality.

Such a doctrine is prohibitively expensive strategy. It demands huge stockpiles of spares, fuel and ammunition near the staging areas, heavy-duty air lift capacity, highly sophisticated C4I network, resource hungry training, and the highest levels of mission-readiness all year around. All of which makes raising and maintaining such a force practically out-of-reach of the Indian means.

Another key factor keeping the CSD dream turning into a reality is the vintage Soviet hardware plaguing the Indian Army, Air Force and Navy. As late as October 2008, CAG warned, India was in real danger of operating with only half of its sub-surface force levels, and cast serious doubts on the reliability of the submarine-launched Klub land-attack cruise missiles. It said, only half of its strength was operationally available which were also too old to stay in service.

CAG was also highly critical of the IAF preparedness. It revealed gaping holes in India's air defenses. According to the report, "Shortage of medium power radars needed for ground control and intercept was as high as 53 percent of the projected requirement. IAF`s holding of low-level transportable radars, which are assigned the role of providing early warning, was merely 24 percent of the actual requirement of the IAF." CAG also rapped Ordnance Factory Board's for substandard production of ammunition.

Indian defense analysts like Manoj Joshi not only echoed CAG's criticism, but further disclosed the alarmingly low mission readiness levels of the military. He revealed the Army lacked adequate stocks of ammunition and other key equipment to fight Pakistan. His source claimed, "The 400-odd Bofors guns we bought in the 1980s are falling apart for want of spares, the (600-odd) Shilka anti-aircraft cannon are in desperate need of upgradation. And this is just the tip of the iceberg." He added, the tank fleet is also in dire shape, and it did not have any mobile artillery to speak of.

Joshi's following comments serve as a rude reminder of the Cold Myth of the Cold Start. He concluded, "Experts admit that notwithstanding the numbers, the armies of the two countries are evenly matched. This means that if India can capture territory in Pakistan, the latter could also do the same in India."

India's strategic stockpiles of fuel, ammunition and spares along with its dwindling war wastage reserves will have to be maintained at full levels at all times for the Cold Start Doctrine to have even the remotest chance of hot operations. Nonetheless, CSD's Achilles' heel turns out to be the cold-reality of India's obsolete military hardware and lack of cold-cash to afford such a hotly expensive doctrine.

Adnan Gill.

February 2, 2009