Arming Without Aiming: India's Military Modernization by Stephen P. Cohen & Sunil Dasgupta

Author:Stephen P. Cohen & Sunil Dasgupta [Cohen, Stephen P. & Dasgupta, Sunil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, Arms Control, History, Military, Strategy, World, Asian
ISBN: 9780815722540
Google: 6f2opVxRGDcC
Amazon: 0815722540
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Published: 2012-12-04T23:00:00+00:00

Crisis Management

The many India-Pakistan crises have produced a debate over “red lines,” shorthand for the limits of national tolerance and a signal to an adversary regarding the latter's plans to escalate. The problem is in determining what the actual limits are, and there have been several fiascos as one side or the other attempts to convey its national resolve or the precise parameters of its red lines. For example, in 2002 the director of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division gave an interview to a group of Italian scientists in which he seemed to precisely identify Pakistani red lines; the interview had to be retracted, as Islamabad did not want to be too specific about these lest the Indians creep right up to them. 26 The Line of Control (LOC) is a particularly important red line. Never a permanent boundary, it was transmuted into one temporarily by the Kargil conflict. Crossing the international border or the LOC could be red lines, but this would depend on prevailing circumstances such as the physical presence of American military forces in the vicinity. 27

India's and Pakistan's declarations of red lines may serve domestic ends but are of questionable strategic value, since full transparency on such operational issues could weaken rather than strengthen the fabric of deterrence. In any case, red lines may change depending upon particular circumstances. India has wisely declined to identify its red lines because any explicit description would indicate the limits of its tolerance, which, if crossed, would require a massive nuclear response. By identifying these red lines India would be bound to act if they were breached, thereby closing other options for responding to provocation. Defining red lines, therefore, is of greater value to the adversary for planning purposes; the adversary would then know the limits that could be reached, but not breached, with a relative sense of impunity .

As for stability, all new nuclear states tend to explore the limits imposed by possession of nuclear weapons. They push at the edges before backing off. This was the case in the U.S.-Soviet relationship until the Cuban Missile Crisis, and in the Sino-Soviet one until the Ussuri River episode. What does recent history tell us about the two main stability issues in South Asia, structural stability and crisis stability? Clearly, five major crises within a twenty-year period indicate a fundamental structural problem. Whether one attributes this primarily to the Kashmir dispute or to other causes such as India's rise as a major power, this region has not been stable and peaceful despite the common cultural and geopolitical heritage of its two dominant states.

As for crisis stability, South Asia's strategists differ sharply: some boast that relations are very stable (many Indians, some Pakistanis), and others that relations are dangerous (many Pakistanis and a few Indians). The “we are stable” school resents American or foreign interference, and also resents the implication that South Asians cannot manage their own affairs. The “we are unstable” school often exaggerates instability because it wishes to draw in outsiders into the region, or to blame the other side for dangerous instability.

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