Indian Politics & Policy Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2018 | Page 39

Indian Politics & Policy
cier in 1984, and an enormous military
exercise in Punjab which kicked off the
Brasstacks crisis and near-war with Pakistan
in 1986–87. Drawing on Alastair
Iain Johnston’s theoretical framework,
242 Ali Ahmed argues convincingly
that “India has not shied away from
the use of force. Such resort has been
discreet and conditioned by strategic
considerations. It has displayed both
resolve and restraint.” Furthermore, the
“operational set in India’s strategic culture
was never as pacifist as suggested
by India’s popular self-image.” 243
In the post-nuclear era, India
has mounted vigorous attacks against
Pakistani positions during the Kargil
conflict, 244 attempted via a massive
military mobilization in 2001–02 to
coerce Pakistan to modify its behavior,
245 and resorted to “surgical strikes”
across the LOC on several occasions,
including after the 2016 Uri massacre.
However, unlike in the pre-nuclear era,
New Delhi has refrained from launching
major attacks across the LOC or
the international border. As discussed
in previous sections, the combined effects
of nuclear deterrence, U.S. crisis
management, and a dearth of good
conventional military options together
provide a robust explanation for Indian
restraint. Nuclear weapons, in particular,
have induced demonstrable
caution, evident in the cases presented
above and in the numerous scholarly
analyses cited in this article. In contrast,
supporters of the strategic restraint explanation
never even attempt to show
through evidence or a specific causal
mechanism that such a “doctrine” in
fact animates Indian behavior. Their argument
is tautological: India acts with
restraint; therefore, it must have a doctrine
of strategic restraint. Indeed, they
sometimes inadvertently betray their
belief that the primary phenomenon
at play is actually nuclear deterrence,
while strategic restraint is distinctly
epiphenomenal. For example, Dasgupta
and Cohen maintain that “once India
and Pakistan accepted the basic reality
of nuclear deterrence ... restraint by
choice became restraint without choice.
No Indian leader could risk the chance
of a Pakistani [nuclear] attack on an Indian
city.” 246 Cohen, writing with two
colleagues about Kargil, notes that Indian
“restraint was in marked contrast
to India’s response in the 1965 and 1971
conflicts, when nuclear weapons had
not entered the equation and it had not
displayed any inhibitions in invading
Pakistan.” 247 Another observer writes
about Twin Peaks: “Vajpayee’s admirers
would praise him for ‘strategic restraint.’
His critics called him indecisive.
No one, in public at least, would
admit the possibility that he might be
being realistic. The Indian Army was
not in a position to deal a decisive blow
against Pakistan.” 248 Strategic restraint
in its truest sense is simply an inclination
toward moderation under the nuclear
shadow. “It means responding in
a way that does not potentially become
strategically costly for India by risking
a broader conventional war, which carries
with it not only human and economic
costs, but also the risk of nuclear
use if the war spills across the international
border.” 249 Claiming a doctrine of
“strategic restraint” makes a virtue out
of necessity.
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