Pakistan’s (Non-Nuclear) Plan to Counter ‘Cold Start’

captscooby81

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@Kunal Biswas

While the details of India’s Cold Start Doctrine (CSD) have been kept ambiguous, its existence has been the worst-kept secret since its inception in 2004. The term “cold start” is of colloquial origin and was not used in the 2004 publication Indian Army Doctrine, with the Army itself preferring the term “Pro-Active Doctrine.” Hence, until this January, when the new Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat called the doctrine by its better known name, its existence was unconfirmed. With the naming ceremony coming to an end, it is perhaps time to move on to the larger question of how Pakistan has responded to CSD, about which there has been precious little debate in the public forum in India. Slowly but surely, Pakistan has devised a conventional response to CSD, even as India’s myopic threat assessment remains focused on the nuclear developments.

The genesis of CSD lies in the squandered hope for peace that overt nuclearization in the subcontinent had ignited. Despite India and Pakistan testing nuclear weapons in 1998, the Kargil War in 1999 and the attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 showed that nuclear weapons could not stabilize the region — quite the contrary. In the wake of the attack on the parliament, India launched Operation Parakram, which entailed military mobilization along the Line of Control (LOC) and the International Border. However, the operation could not achieve its objective as it took a month for Indian troops to mobilize, by which time Pakistan had counter-mobilized and international pressure had built to de-escalate. Learning its lesson, the Indian military changed its doctrine from a defensive one to a more offensive posture by adopting the Cold Start Doctrine, with the objective of finding space for a limited conventional war under the nuclear umbrella. By bringing about structural and organizational changes in line with CSD, Indian army planned to mount an attack within a short time frame in case of grave provocation.

Pakistan’s response to CSD has been two-fold — the induction of tactical nuclear weapons in a bid to lower its nuclear redlines, while shoring up its conventional capabilities. Its view of CSD is informed by the golden rule: hope for the best, prepare for the worst. On the one hand, Pakistan asserts Cold Start is an unviable plan as India lacks the capability and initiative to implement it; on the other hand, Islamabad eyes with suspicion Indian military spending and military modernization, arguing that such actions threaten to fuel an arms race between the two neighbors.

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While Pakistan’s nuclear response to CSD has dominated the narrative, it is the conventional response that was devised first. In the last few years of General Musharraf’s presidency, especially between 2004 and 2007, India and Pakistan were engaged in backchannel negotiations and came tantalizingly close to finding a solution to the Kashmir issue. Then the 2007 Lawyers’ Movement forced Musharraf out of power and a new leadership took charge. With General Kayani as the new chief of army staff, the threat from India came back into focus, and so did the perceived risk of CSD. Given India’s military capability and its declared Cold Start Doctrine, Kayani believed that Pakistan could not afford to let its guard down as the country prepared according to “adversaries’ capabilities, not intentions.” He went on to give his assessment of the timeline by which India would be able to operationalize CSD — two years for partial implementation and five years for full — betraying the urgency he attached to a counter-response.

Between 2009 and 2013, the Pakistan Army conducted military exercises codenamed Azm-e-Nau to formalize and operationalize a conventional response to CSD. At its conclusion, Pakistan adopted a “new concept of war fighting” (NCWF) that aims to improve mobilization time of troops and enhance inter-services coordination, especially between the Army and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF). To this end, Pakistan Air Force’s aerial exercise High Mark was conducted alongside Azm-e-Nau III in 2010, which saw the participation of over 20,000 troops from all services in areas of southern Punjab, Sialkot, and Sindh along Pakistan’s eastern border with India. The 2010 exercises were the largest conducted by the Army since 1989. PAF’s exercise High Mark, conducted every five years, synchronizes the Air Force’s response with Army maneuvers, covering a vast area from Skardu in the north to the Arabian Sea in the south. As per military sources, with the implementation of the NCFW, the Pakistan Army will be able to mobilize even faster than India. This should worry India as CSD’s raison d’etre lies in the short reaction time it requires to launch an offensive. If Pakistan is indeed able to mount a counter-offensive even before India fires the first shot, literally and figuratively, it blunts the effectiveness of the Indian military doctrine.

The seriousness with which Pakistan is pursuing its conventional force build-up can be inferred from the military acquisitions made since it initiated the military exercises to validate NCWF. As per SIPRI data, there has been a sharp increase in military expenditures by Pakistan to acquire armaments, with 2010 being the peak year. In the seven year period between 2010 and 2016, there was a 58 percent increase in total expenditures compared to the years from 2003 to 2009. The categories that saw the sharpest increase were aircraft, armored vehicles, and missiles, all of which enhance conventional war fighting capability, as opposed to counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. While expenditures on armored vehicles went up 76 percent, purchases of aircraft and missiles saw a whopping increase of 114 percent and 127 percent, respectively.

The security community in India should re-assess the efficacy of CSD in the face of developments across the border. By taking into account both the conventional and nuclear response by Pakistan, India needs to ponder whether course-correction would suffice or whether its time to go back to the drawing-board.

Meenakshi Sood is a researcher with the Center for Land Warfare Studies (the Indian Army’s think tank) in New Delhi, India. She holds an MPhil and MA in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University.
 

Kunal Biswas

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She is speculating on Pakistani mobilizations time based on Intel available to them ..

If anything could stop Army is its political weak-necks and their moles in Army, Army strike corps are steamrollers, If some one put few nukes and say stop, Sorry that is not how wars are fought ..

The steam roller won`t stop unless it get to its objectives ..

Our Army is much more organize and available on almost all the front, It takes 48hrs for Indian army mobilizations as per 2012 standards ..
 
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@Kunal Biswas @LETHALFORCE @Bornubus @Mikesingh @sayareakd

This women is saying IA s CSD is obsolete now as paki s have NCWF strategy any valuable inputs on what this article says ???
From what i have read about cold start and speaking to others about it once implemented
most objectives against pakistan will be achieved in 4 hours and 100% completed in 48 hours. Read about German blitzkrieg in ww2 and it will give you better picture of cold start.
Hint: India is developing more strike corp units.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/na...-strike-corps-on-track-army-chief/183726.html

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...ountain-strike-corps/articleshow/51283303.cms

http://indianexpress.com/article/in...e-second-division-for-mountain-corps-4572493/
 
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@Kunal Biswas @LETHALFORCE @Bornubus @Mikesingh @sayareakd

This women is saying IA s CSD is obsolete now as paki s have NCWF strategy any valuable inputs on what this article says ???
She is playing the old tune- Nukes, quicker response of Pakis, international pressure-

She is forgetting that in 1965 when India was at its weakest- Our Forces marched up to Chawinda and Lahore- And no amount of international pressure could stop us-

Its just that India is trying to take on China so we need more money hence peace- the day we are 10 trillion $$ economy- Pakis can say good bye to their country-

Pakis have already realized It and hence they are quickly selling everything inside Pakistan to China for dirt cheap rock bottom prices or free at times even paying- So that China gets hurt in case of Indian attack and starts a war with India-

Little do they realize we have plans to trap China in Pakistan and make It the Chinese Vietnam-
 

Tarun Kumar

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I believe that CSD is a flawed doctrine. What we need is a combination of Brahmos and Pralay to destroy Pakis military and missile launch facilities. In addition UCAVs with satlinks to loiter and destroy missile launch sites, air bases and nuke stations along with S400 to wipe out their Air Force. Then we should go for a straight nuclear strike on their cities and military targets to reduce them to rubble while our military stays in a defensive axis inside IB. Overtime we should go for space launch facility to destroy their missile launch sites within seconds from space itself.
 

Indx TechStyle

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I believe that CSD is a flawed doctrine.
Read your own post.:D
What we need is a combination of Brahmos and Pralay to destroy Pakis military and missile launch facilities. In addition UCAVs with satlinks to loiter and destroy missile launch sites, air bases and nuke stations along with S400 to wipe out their Air Force.
Doesn't that sound familiar to CSD itself?:biggrin2:
 

pankaj nema

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I believe that CSD is a flawed doctrine. What we need is a combination of Brahmos and Pralay to destroy Pakis military and missile launch facilities. In addition UCAVs with satlinks to loiter and destroy missile launch sites, air bases and nuke stations along with S400 to wipe out their Air Force. Then we should go for a straight nuclear strike on their cities and military targets to reduce them to rubble while our military stays in a defensive axis inside IB. Overtime we should go for space launch facility to destroy their missile launch sites within seconds from space itself.
You dont have any idea about Pakistani mentality

Unless and Until Indian tanks are on Pakistani soil
and thousands of Pakistani soldiers are killed
Pak Army's " Aura of superiority " amongst the Pakistani masses will not be broken

Missile strikes ; Air strikes ; MBRLs will only hurt their pride but not Break their arrogance

Cold Start is about physically damaging their Military assets
And psychologically forcing them to accept defeat
 

Tarun Kumar

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In war capabilities matter and arrogance counts for little. Pakis are also not fools. I believe that they are slowly but surely preparing ground for Chinese military presence in Pakistan and selling themselves precisely for this scenario.Any physical assault inside Pakistan will set the stage for a massive counter assault by islamic alliance and China combined. The days of conventional war are over. We need more tech based solutions- Space based missiles to destroy military targets, more supersonic and hypersonic vehicles, S400 , AAD/PDV, directed energy weapons. This is the age of automated warfare in a nuclear backdrop and sending tanks to pakiland will be incredibly foolish
 

Indx TechStyle

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Pakis are also not fools.
Yeah, the country who has doctrine to use nukes on own territory just to repel occupiers is intelligent breed.

These intelligent breeds are ready to sacrifice $7 billions every year (much valueable for a $300 billions economy) but won't give MFN to India.
We need more tech based solutions
Weren't older means using tech?
 

pankaj nema

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In war capabilities matter and arrogance counts for little. Pakis are also not fools. I believe that they are slowly but surely preparing ground for Chinese military presence in Pakistan and selling themselves precisely for this scenario.Any physical assault inside Pakistan will set the stage for a massive counter assault by islamic alliance and China combined. The days of conventional war are over. We need more tech based solutions- Space based missiles to destroy military targets, more supersonic and hypersonic vehicles, S400 , AAD/PDV, directed energy weapons. This is the age of automated warfare in a nuclear backdrop and sending tanks to pakiland will be incredibly foolish
You are entitled to your views

But the professionals who know and understand war much better than ANY of us know better

There fore Indian Army is constantly refining its Techniques
and doctrines

Recently we conducted an Exercise in which An Entire Para Brigade was Air dropped Behind Enemy lines while
The conflict is Happening

Read this

http://www.indiandefencereview.com/news/indian-airborne-troops-script-history/

Even the Pakis are investing in their conventional capabilities
such as Al Khalid tanks and JF 17 and New SAMs

The Chinese have Not shown ANY inclination to shed blood and get killed in the last 35 years after Vietnam War

All that they do is Show off

They can not beat Taiwan and Vietnam

And you expect them to get killed for Pakistanis

They only believe in spending Money

If they really wanted to fight with India they could have done so in 1986 Itself or in Kargil war

Technology has its limitations

Even the Mighty USA had to send in Ground troops in
Afghanistan and Iraq
 

Bornubus

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Kill their soldiers, breach their sovereignty in PoK by capturing their posts and show this to the world. This would do more damage than Nukes.


And this is well under Nuclear threshold, in other words go for small scale war of attrition.
 

IndianHawk

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Cold start is working perfectly. It has always had an psychological angle . Just by accepting that it exists India is able to put pakistan in continuous pant shitting mode. Pakistan can't keep its Forces in ready battle state for long given unrest on its Western front and unreliable Iran on the other side.

Also by our own experience of last year we know how costly it is to keep war coffers full. Some 3billion $$ we have spent just to get 10 days of full fighting ammunitions, spares.
Now with cold start pakistan will have to maintain same ammunition where will it find money.??

Economy gap between India Pakistan will only become that much more imposing. Pakistan can't keep its force standing with readiness without going bankrupt and cold start doesn't leave any other options .

That is the genius of cold start.
 

Bornubus

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Cold start is working perfectly. It has always had an psychological angle . Just by accepting that it exists India is able to put pakistan in continuous pant shitting mode. Pakistan can't keep its Forces in ready battle state for long given unrest on its Western front and unreliable Iran on the other side.

Also by our own experience of last year we know how costly it is to keep war coffers full. Some 3billion $$ we have spent just to get 10 days of full fighting ammunitions, spares.
Now with cold start pakistan will have to maintain same ammunition where will it find money.??

Economy gap between India Pakistan will only become that much more imposing. Pakistan can't keep its force standing with readiness without going bankrupt and cold start doesn't leave any other options .

That is the genius of cold start.

Pakistan compensate it's low military budget against India by fast procuring low cost reverse engineer weapons with full ToT from China NK

By the time India defense Tender gets to the advance stage pakis procure and deploy a whole Regt of similar system.
 

IndianHawk

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Pakistan compensate it's low military budget against India by fast procuring low cost reverse engineer weapons with full ToT from China NK

By the time India defense Tender gets to the advance stage pakis procure and deploy a whole Regt of similar system.
I agree . But operational expenses far outweigh purchasing expense in the long run. It's not the gun but the bullets which bleed money in war.

And cheaper system from china will need more maintainance more service cost greater numbers due to poor availability.

Let's see how long they can keep up
 

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