Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 36

India’s Ways of (Non-) War: Explaining New Delhi’s
Forbearance in the Face of Pakistani Provocations
stani air and ground forces, 219 but rather
in its ability to grind Pakistan down
in a longer, attrition-style ground war.
But, this is exactly the type of assault
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and asymmetric
escalation posture most credibly
deter. 220 During the cases under
examination, if India had clear, even
blitzkrieg-level, superiority in ground
forces, and could have inflicted a severe
defeat on Pakistani forces, it would have
run serious risks of a nuclear reprisal.
Furthermore, looming over Indian consideration
of even limited conventional
strikes across the established international
border is that India is damned if
it loses, but also damned if it wins, because
Pakistan might well respond to
imminent defeat by resorting to nuclear
weapons. Large military organizations
are not enthusiastic about, or good
at, winning big ... but not too big. The
champions of Cold Start-type limited
war operations have not succeeded in
convincing their political masters that
they know where the line is between
penetrating “far enough” versus “too
far” into a nuclearized Pakistan.
Even absent the constraints imposed
on Indian decision making by
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, it is arguably
the case that India has never had
good options for going on the offensive
against Pakistan over the last 20
years. Strikes against terrorist targets
across the LOC are likely to have minimal
impact on Pakistan’s willingness to
support cross-LOC attacks. Kashmir’s
mountainous terrain is unpromising
for meaningful conventional incursions,
militants are likely to have evacuated
their rudimentary encampments
and escaped at first warning of major
Indian military operations, and—in
any event—Pakistan’s terrorist infrastructure
extends well beyond Kashmir.
Only a successful Indian conventional
invasion across the international border
might compel changes in Pakistani behavior,
but—nuclear weapons aside—
analysts tend to agree that India does
not have sufficient conventional superiority
along its Western frontier to be
confident of victory. India’s overall advantages
in conventional military forces
are reduced by its need to keep hundreds
of thousands of troops engaged in
Kashmir 221 and deployed in the eastern
part of the country against potential
threats from China. Although the Indian
army has three strike corps to Pakistan’s
two, their peacetime positions are
relatively far from the border, and their
mobilization times remain slow. Pakistan
Army strike corps are much closer
to the border in peacetime, and the
country’s narrow geography means that
its internal lines of supply and communications
are considerably shorter than
its opponent’s. Because India would be
unlikely to have the advantage of strategic
surprise in a sudden crisis, by the
time its strike corps are poised for battle
after 2–3 weeks of mobilization, Pakistan’s
would be well positioned for both
defensive and counter-offensive operations.
222 While India enjoys somewhat
favorable ratios of tanks, fighter aircraft,
and other equipment, these ratios
are not high enough for Indian military
planners to provide assurances of success
to the political leadership. 223 Lastly,
India’s armed forces have been plagued
by obsolete tanks, armored vehicles,
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