Have you heard that it is merely a fairytale? We haven't amassed even 10% of the equipment and war material required to execute the doctrine. Any armchair philosopher can cook up fancy doctrines. Acquiring the material is just one aspect, then there's training and mock drills to execute your plans, these are necessary to validate your doctrine and to serve as an overt deterrent to the enemy. This doctrine was cooked up more than 15 years ago but we still haven't inducted the requisite artillery regiments. We need land mobile artillery, and air mobile artillery. an order has recently been placed for Smasung K9 and M777. These systems will start arriving after 2018 and the last unit will arrive in 2015, after which our fancy doctrine can have some teeth. What were they doing for 15 years? By the time we induct all the armament required for our doctrine, the security ecosystem and the threat matrix will have already changed.
When the West threatened Russia, they rapidly came up with new doctrines, their military research and design departments rapidly came up with prototypes to suit their doctrine, their manufacturing sector stood up to the challenge of mass manufacturing the systems on time, their army underwent a rapid restructuring in their training and hierarchy to align themselves seamlessly with the new doctrine, they did their exercises and validated their doctrines on the ground, this is how they were able to outfox a larger enemy like the US in Ukraine and Syria. This is how winners are made, not by patting ourselves on our own backs. A doctrine is only successful if the people who envisage it have a perfect synchronization with those who manufacture the weapons and those who use the weapons. In our case, there is complete dissonance between these three entities, with each department doing whatever entertains its own vanity. It doesn't seem like our higher ups are taking this seriously either.
The simple fact is that if Cold Start were operational doctrine, we would have used it after 26/11. The reason we sat back like a bunch of eunuchs is because we had no response to Pakistan's rapidly evolving asymmetric doctrines.
In May 2011, India launched Operation Vijayee Bhava ("Be Victorious"), a defence exercise involving 50,000 troops in Bikaner and Suratgarh near the in order to boost the synergy between the various branches of the armed forces.
The main objective of the operation was to cut down the mobilisation time of the military, which took 27 days to mobilise during Op Parakram. The Indian Army confirmed that the exercise was successful, reducing mobilisation time drastically to 48 hours.
India has been constructing massive new airfields and bases, a wide rail and road communication network has been laid down to facilitate swift mobilisation, new logistic installations have been set up close to Pakistan’s borders to support the offensives and the peacetime locations of some of the formations are what they used to be in times of crisis.
In July 2011, India tested the Prahar, a new solid-fuel tactical ballistic missile with a range of 150 km designed to provide invading Indian Army battle groups with lethal fire support.
The Indian Army had also conducted its largest war game in the last two decades, titled Operation Sudarshan Shakti under HQ Southern Command, to re-validate its Cold Start doctrine. The desert exercise was based on the Integrated Theater Battle concept, where various wings participated successfully in a single cohesive format during war.
The focus of Sudarshan Shakti was to practice synergy and integration between ground and air forces. Nearly 60,000 troops and 500 armoured vehicles, including T-72, T-90 and Arjun MBTs, carried out simulated deep thrusts, with support from the artillery including missile regiments and the IAF. The third prong of the TRIAD is also now ready with the introduction of SSBNs like the Arihant which has added a further dimension to Pakistan's threat perceptions and is a huge deterrent against using their tactical nukes against these Integrated Battle Groups.
The Indian Army has also tested newly inducted radars, UAVs, surveillance systems, precision guided bombs, missiles, space-based assets and real-time data-sharing between elements in line with the doctrine.
Call it what you may - Cold Start, pre-emptive counter attack, deep thrust, blitzkrieg or pro-active strategy - the basic doctrine is the same. In other words, strike deep into Pakistan by multiple self contained integrated battle groups, over a very wide area simultaneously within the shortest possible time in order to unbalance the enemy.
Holding formations in the meanwhile would be geared to counter any enemy ripostes into Indian territory.
You would have understood the concept better if you had taken part in war games!
That's why I asked. Have you? But whether you have or not, I would advise you to consider taking back your words, 'lack of intellect'. This hoity toity attitude makes you look silly.
