What is India’s Cold Start Doctrine

The Sundarji Doctrine was made up of seven defensive "holding corps" of the Indian Army and deployed near the Pakistani border. Possessing limited offensive power, the holding corps'

Pakistan said that it had developed short range nuclear missiles to counter India's Cold Start Doctrine. What is India's Cold Start Doctrine?

Cold start is a military doctrine that was developed by the Indian Army for use in a possible war with Pakistan. This doctrine involves various branches of the Army conducting offensive operations as part of unified battle groups.

The doctrine intends to allow India's conventional forces to perform holding attacks to prevent nuclear retaliation from Pakistan in case of a conflict.

Former defence minister of India, George Fernandes had termed India's defence strategy since 1974, "a non-aggressive, non-provocative defense policy," centred around "holding corps" to halt hostile advances. In response to the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in 2001, India initiated a full mobilisation. Taking almost a month, the slow mobilisation demonstrated the weakness of India's then current policy. The long mobilisation time resulted in sufficient international pressure preventing India from conducting a retaliatory strike.

Sundarji doctrine:

The Sundarji Doctrine was made up of seven defensive "holding corps" of the Indian Army and deployed near the Pakistani border. Possessing limited offensive power, the holding corps' primary responsibility was to check a Pakistani advance.

India's offensive potency was derived from the "strike corps," which were made up of a mechanised infantry and extensive artillery support. "Unlike the holding corps that was deployed close to the border," argues Walter Ladwig of the University of Oxford, "the strike corps was based in central India, a significant distance from the international border. In a war, after the holding corps halted a Pakistani attack, the strike corps would counterattack, penetrating deep into Pakistani territory to destroy the Pakistan Army's own strike corps through 'deep sledgehammer blows' in a high-intensity battle of attrition."

However, the limitation of the Sundarji doctrine was exposed on 13 December 2001, when five masked men attacked the Indian Parliament.

India suspected Kashmir based militant groups were behind this because just two months earlier, a similar assault was carried out by the Jaish-e-Mohammad on the Kashmir state assembly.

India received credible evidence that Pakistani-sponsored militant groups Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad were behind the attack, prompting India to initiate Operation Parakram, the largest activation of its forces since the 1971 Bangladesh war.

It took the Indian strike corps three weeks to get to the international border. During that time Pakistan was able to counter-mobilize and allow for intervening powers-the United States in particular-to become an intermediary to the conflict.

Urging India to restrain, the American Ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill, demanded that India wait until President Pervez Musharraf delivered a speech that would address the crisis. Musharraf's speech was quick to denounce terrorism generally, and militant groups operating in Kashmir specifically, promising a crackdown. "As a result of Musharraf's declaration, by the time the strike corps reached the border region, India's political justification for military action had been significantly reduced," Walter C. Ladwig maintains.

Indian military strategists came to the conclusion that the Sundarji doctrine was flawed. It was too inflexible to respond to terrorist attacks or other indirect challenges, for three reasons:

• The strike corps was too big and too far away from the international border, making it difficult to deploy in a timely fashion.
• The long duration needed to mobilize the strike corps prevented strategic surprise, allowing Pakistan plenty of time to counter-mobilize.
• The holding corps' lack of offensive power along the international border prevented it from engaging in significant offensives.

Developing the doctrine:

The development of this doctrine represented a significant change in Indian defence planning. Exercises aimed at reducing mobilisation time and improved network-centric warfare capabilities have contributed to the development of the Cold Start doctrine. Despite the advances, this doctrine remains in the experimental stage.

The doctrine, known as Cold Start, deviated from the defence posture that India's military had employed since independence in 1947. "The goal of this limited war doctrine is to establish the capacity to launch a retaliatory conventional strike against Pakistan that would inflict significant harm on the Pakistan Army before the international community could intercede, and at the same time, pursue narrow enough aims to deny Islamabad a justification to escalate the clash to the nuclear level."

Drawing on the experience of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War as well as the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971, Indian defence planners envisioned a new doctrine. It would involve limited, rapid armoured thrusts, with infantry and necessary air support.

As per Cold Start promulgation, offensive operations could begin within 48 hours after orders have been issued. Such a limited response time would enable Indian forces to surprise their Pakistani counterparts. Operations would involve armoured spearheads launched from forward positions in Punjab and Rajasthan.

The plan emphasises speed and overwhelming firepower: armored formations and accompanying infantry would advance into eastern Pakistan with limited goals in terms of distance and in terms of duration. The plan reportedly has a significant air support component.

From the Indian perspective, the plan has the added virtue of accentuating Pakistani discomfiture and angst, which in theory may have some deterrent value.

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