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Home , Islamabad, Kargil War, New Delhi, Shivshankar Menon

“Managing New ’s participation in the Afghan endgame will be critical, and it will require a review of US- policy in Washington.”

The Fate of India’s Strategic Restraint SUNIL DASGUPTA

n February 2012, India selected a French jet, a 2010 book, Stephen P. Cohen of the Brookings the Rafale, as the new mainstay fighter for its Institution and I called this phenomenon “arming Iair force. A month earlier, the country had without aiming.” We found that the disconnect leased a nuclear submarine from Russia. The ac- between strategic purpose and military planning quisition of the fighter aircraft and submarine is is both shaped by and reinforces military-strategic part of an ambitious military modernization that restraint in India’s foreign policy. has made India the number one arms importer in Today, notwithstanding growing uncertainty the world. in South and the recently accelerated arms This rearmament effort, riding on ’s buildup, appears unlikely to abandon unprecedented economic growth, has prompt- this military restraint. Certainly, fears of American ed some observers to wonder whether India has withdrawal from the region are making Indians jit- decided to balance Chinese power in Asia or is tery about a resurgence of terrorist threats. At the seeking to correct the anomaly of strategic parity same time, New Delhi likely will strive to wield its with , a country one fifth its size. Indians growing economic and international influence in themselves want their country to act more assert- as US troops pull out. Although In- ively, and India’s primary rival, Pakistan, has never dia’s engagement probably will not rise to the level bought into neighborly restraint. of military intervention, it might be sufficient to So, could we be witnessing the start of an India- fuel another dangerous rivalry with the arms race in Asia that would become the in Afghanistan. defining global conflict of the twenty-first centu- Outside of an unlikely new , however, In- ry—as the United States returns to its traditional dia’s political leaders will not want to spend the role of offshore balancer, reduces its overseas pres- political and monetary necessary to trans- ence, and husbands resources for domestic recov- form growing resources into military power and ery? Could we also be standing on the precipice of purpose sufficient for a reordering of their coun- a nuclear confrontation with Pakistan? try’s strategic condition. The answer is: Probably not. India’s rearma- This is not a pessimistic view of India’s prospects ment efforts are unlikely to turn the nation into in the world. To the contrary, military-strategic re- an aggressive power, seeking military balance with straint has paid off handsomely despite the result- China and upending the existing balance with ing inefficiencies in defense planning. Restraint has Pakistan. Indeed, not only have India’s political contributed to greater accommodation of India’s leaders traditionally hesitated to use force as an rise as a great power in the international commu- instrument of foreign policy even when the con- nity. The rise of China led , for example, ditions were right for it, they have neglected to to exhort India to become more engaged in South- provide clear strategic guidance to the military. In . Today, even the Russians hesitate to sell advanced weapons to China, but Western firms want to be part of India’s military revival. They are SUNIL DASGUPTA is director of the political science program at the Universities at Shady Grove, part of the University motivated by profit, of course, but also by the rec- of Maryland–Baltimore County, and a non-resident senior ognition that India is unlikely to become hostile to fellow in foreign policy studies at the . their own nations’ interests. He is co-author, with Stephen P. Cohen, of Arming Without Aiming: India’s Military Modernization (Brookings Institu- Most notably, the US-India Civil Nuclear Coop- tion Press, 2010). eration Agreement, based on a framework agreed

129 130 • CURRENT HISTORY • April 2012 to by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan bloodiest and most demoralizing fought by and then-US President George W. Bush in 2005, the . has legitimized India’s status as a nuclear weapons In an October 2011 speech, when it was clear power, making it the only country to be accom- that the United States was going to withdraw from modated this way since 1968, when the Nuclear Afghanistan sooner rather than later, Indian Na- Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was concluded. tional Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon sought Would a militarily aggressive India have received to highlight the importance of armed force in in- the same accommodation? ternational politics, yet he described his country’s approach to the use of force almost entirely in EXCEPTIONAL INDIA terms of strategic restraint. Historically, India’s nationalist leaders have Menon pointed out that India had set clear lim- steered away from using force in pursuit of politi- its on the use of military force even against insur- cal goals, a strategy that is rooted in their choice gencies that received foreign assistance. The na- of nonviolent struggle to press for freedom. This tion’s defense spending had exceeded 3 percent approach has deemphasized security threats and of GDP in only a single year since independence. the role of military power, even though a war with India returned it won in war and has not Pakistan over accompanied Indian inde- sought to project power overseas. Indian troops pendence. have gone abroad only when invited by other gov- India’s boldest military decisions—its 1971 ernments and usually under the invasion of and its 1998 nuclear flag. Menon argued that India’s history made cred- tests—were far more reactive than widely believed. ible its no-first-use commitment on nuclear weap- In 1971, millions of Bengali refugees poured into ons. India to escape the Pakistani army’s genocidal vi- olence in the eastern wing of the country. India CONTROLLED ESCALATION won a quick and easy victory in the east and took With Pakistan, nuclear weapons have rein- 90,000 prisoners, but it did not attack West Paki- forced Indian restraint. As the country with the stan, which was the true source of anti-India senti- smaller military capacity, Pakistan has threatened ment in Pakistan. the first use of nuclear weapons and India has In 1998, the Indian government conducted backed down four times—in 1986, 1990, 1999, nuclear tests in response to American efforts to and 2001–02. New Delhi has succeeded in con- close down the nuclear option for India through trolling escalation even as proxy conflicts with Is- the indefinite extension of the NPT and the im- lamabad have grown worse. position of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban In 1990 and 1999, India was careful to limit its Treaty—an agreement New Delhi rejected. India military responses to Pakistani provocations. In had conducted nuclear tests in 1974 but had put 1990, New Delhi responded to ’s sup- its nuclear program into a deep freeze until the port for rebels in Kashmir not with war but with mid-1980s. Indeed, public reports suggest India a counterinsurgency campaign inside Kashmir. has not pursued the development of a nuclear ar- The disputed territory has remained violent for senal with vigor since the 1998 tests, even at the two decades now, yet India has not expanded the risk of falling behind Pakistan. conflict by crossing into Pakistan. In 1999, Indian In practice, when India has tried to be militar- armed forces responded to Pakistani incursions ily assertive—such as when pur- into the of Kashmir with a hard- sued a forward policy against China in the 1950s, fought clearing operation that took pains not to and when Nehru’s grandson, , sent enter Pakistan. Both campaigns cost India greatly the Indian army to police a peace deal in Sri Lan- in dead and wounded, but India did not escalate ka—the results have been disastrous. Prime Min- the fighting. ister Nehru’s forward policy resulted in a humiliat- In 1986 and 2001–02, India’s military maneu- ing defeat in a war against China in 1962. In 1987, vers produced standoffs from which the country India sent four army divisions to monitor and stepped back when presented with Pakistani nu- enforce a peace agreement between the separatist clear threats. In 1986, New Delhi conducted mili- Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan government, but tary exercises on the Pakistan border that the peacekeeping mission turned into a conflict Krishnaswami Sundarji, who was then chief of In- that has been called “India’s ,” one of the dia’s army, later called the last chance to resolve The Fate of India’s Strategic Restraint • 131 the Pakistan problem. But India did not go to war. fused visas to two Indian officials on the grounds In 2001–02, India deployed hundreds of thou- that they are Chinese citizens by virtue of their sands of troops to the border in an effort to coerce birth in territory claimed by China. New Delhi in Pakistan to stop supporting terrorism in India. But 2008 approved two new army divisions for use on the effort failed. The Indian government was sim- the Chinese border and ordered the reopening of ply not ready to go to the nuclear edge. some forward airfields. In the years since the failure of coercive - Even so, neither government appears to have an macy in 2001–02, the Indian army has sought to interest in exacerbating their mutual challenges. break out of mere escalation control with its “Cold China is focused on the United States and consid- Start” doctrine, which proposes that a quick and ers India a sideshow; is most concerned deep strike inside Pakistan would catch the coun- about the possibility of a US-India alliance against try unawares. By the time Islamabad could react, China. If Beijing becomes antagonistic, that will international pressure would come into play to push India closer to the United States. India for its prevent nuclear escalation. India’s political lead- part sees China as more powerful and not a chal- ers, however, have not endorsed this doctrine. lenge to take on directly; New Delhi is most con- With China, India has generally sought détente cerned with China’s Pakistan relationship. Better since the 1980s. Although many Indians—includ- Indian relations with China reduce the need for ing large sections of the military—remain suspi- Beijing to draw closer to Islamabad. cious of Chinese intentions, India’s governments across political parties have wanted better rela- UNGUIDED WEAPONS tions with Beijing for almost three decades. In the It is hardly surprising, then, that India’s politi- 1980s, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi revived dip- cal leaders have neglected military planning. Po- lomatic relations with China after two decades of litical guidance to the military in public is banal estrangement following the at best and often contradic- 1962 war. Since then every tory. In 2011, Prime Min- Indian prime minister, in- Military-strategic restraint has paid ister Singh told an annual cluding conference of the country’s off handsomely despite the resulting of the right-wing nationalist top military commanders BJP party, has reaffirmed the inefficiencies in defense planning. that “networked, nimble- policy of engagement with footed, and more lethal” Beijing. terrorist groups posed the The rapprochement seems to have been moti- greatest threat to the nation. He clarified further vated by Indian concerns about a growing Paki- that cyber-terrorism and nuclear proliferation stan-China alliance (Beijing in the late 1980s had were significant emerging challenges. been accused of transferring long-range missile The military commanders, however, are not re- technology to Islamabad in violation of the Mis- sponsible for counterterrorism, except in Kashmir sile Technology Control Regime). In 1999 the rec- and in India’s northeastern states. They certainly onciliation effort paid off when China adopted a do not deal directly with cyber and nuclear issues. neutral stand between India and Pakistan during What were they to make of the prime minister’s the . comment? Was it an invitation to the military to On the Chinese side, the rapprochement with become more involved in domestic security issues, New Delhi has been driven in part by concerns or was it an acknowledgment that the country’s about a rising US-India alliance. The Kargil War primary security threats are ones with which the marked the first time that the United States de- armed forces need not concern themselves? finitively sided with India against Pakistan in Singh’s speech obliquely referred to Pakistan, the history of American diplomacy in the region. but he followed up that reference with discussion What might have led to an outbreak of competi- of the need to give neighboring states a stake in tive, balance-of-power politics instead became a India’s economic success. The prime minister’s lib- virtuous circle. When two of the three actors drew eral approach to international relations is widely closer, the third moved in to close the gap. lauded, but his public comments offer little guid- India and China remain unable to settle a long- ance for military planners. standing territorial dispute, and recently both gov- A few days before Singh’s speech, National Se- ernments have been acting tough. Beijing has re- curity Adviser Menon delivered a more pointed 132 • CURRENT HISTORY • April 2012 lecture on the role of military force in an anarchic Since the US Navy Seals raid on Osama bin international system. Menon tried hard to strike a Laden’s compound in last year, India’s realist tone that contrasted with the prime minister’s special forces have been thinking about how to more liberal approach to security. But which speech conduct a similar operation. Although India can represented official policy? One consequence of the physically strike deep inside Pakistan, it does not lack of clarity was the banality of Menon’s conclu- have the intelligence capability to conduct months sion that “the primary purpose of Indian military of on the ground inside Pakistan. In- power remains the defense of India’s territorial in- dia’s special forces need to work with its intelli- tegrity . . . and to prepare for the threats of war that gence agencies, but the intelligence agencies have exist.” Do national forces do anything else? their own imperatives and are in dire need of re- Private direction from political leaders to the form themselves. military is undoubtedly more detailed, but it is still The most dramatic example of the lack of pol- not driving military choices. Rather than follow- icy coordination is the military modernization ef- ing an agenda set by the political leadership, the fort itself. The armed forces appear to be buying armed forces appear to be driving their own mod- new weapons to fight another conventional war, ernization plans. Prime Minister Singh accepted yet the political leadership and in particular the the premise of military-led planning in a 2004 current prime minister have repeatedly identified address to the military commanders’ conference. and terrorism as the primary threats to “The impulse of technological modernization,” he Indian security. said, “has to come from within our armed forces Since political supremacy over the armed forces and our defense establishments.” is not a problem in India, it is hard to understand Taking their cue, India’s highly professional how the armed forces could so baldly deviate from armed forces have done what professionals do, political direction, unless of course the political which is to pursue techno- leaders are not holding the logical advancement within military to their guidance. their own well defined but India’s nationalist leaders In my view, this hands-off narrow domains. The origi- approach is a choice that In- have steered away from using nal justification for what be- dian political leaders make came the Rafale fighter de- force in pursuit of political goals. because they do not believe cision, for example, was to in the use of force as an in- replace the ’s strument of foreign policy. aging MiG-21, a Soviet-supplied lightweight in- terceptor jet. But the Indian air force altered the AMERICA IN THE MIDDLE selection criteria and held competitive trials for a Rather than military power, India’s grand strat- more versatile, more expensive, medium-range, egy today depends on diplomacy and in particu- medium-weight, multi-role fighter. lar on a transformed relationship with the United One consequence of the air force’s choice was States. New Delhi’s ability to continue the détente the rejection of the indigenous Light Combat Air- with Beijing is contingent on whether America craft (LCA), which its developers had hoped would has an appetite for better relations with China. If replace the MiG-21, but which the air force has the United States revises its China policy toward always regarded as subpar. Whether the air force greater confrontation, India will lose its room for should support indigenous aircraft development maneuver and will be forced to choose between by backing the LCA, even if it were inferior, is a Washington and Beijing. If America decides to matter of policy coordination—it is a decision that downgrade its ties with India, New Delhi will per- political leaders need to make. To invest in aircraft force become closer to Beijing and presumably ac- development and then go outside to buy foreign cept Chinese terms in their territorial dispute. planes suggests either research and development Following a difficult period in US-China rela- failure or poor policy making. tions, the administration appears The lack of policy coordination is endemic. The to have gained ground with Beijing by disavow- Indian army, for example, has not been able to ing the view that the United States fears the rise convince the air force to adopt its Cold Start doc- of China. The administration has won concessions trine even though no invasion of Pakistan would from China on currency revaluation, environmen- be possible without air power. tal rules, and censorship. On the other side of the The Fate of India’s Strategic Restraint • 133 triangle, the Indian and Chinese governments America refocused the president’s agenda. Howev- have failed to resolve irritants in their relation- er, a December 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian ship, but both seem committed not to exacerbate showed that the United States would matters. The three-way dance among New Delhi, have to satisfy Indian concerns about support for Beijing, and Washington has thus allowed India to terrorism in Pakistan in order to pursue war in Af- remain strategically restrained, reduced its costs of ghanistan effectively. Washington persuaded Paki- defense, and encouraged other states to accommo- stan to sanction extremist anti-India groups such date its rise. as Lashkar-e-Taiba. The US-India side of the triangle, however, has Over the next five years, US-India ties im- been buffeted by developments in Afghanistan and proved dramatically, culminating in the nuclear Pakistan. Since 1999, when the United States un- deal that essentially legitimized India’s nuclear equivocally turned toward India—and away from weapons program in return for bringing India’s Pakistan—for the first time during the Kargil War, civilian nuclear program under international safe- New Delhi has sought to leverage its improved guards. With American nudging, India-Pakistan relations with Washington to make gains with ties improved as well. By the end of 2007, the Islamabad. With concern rising over extremist two countries were on the verge of a diplomatic groups in Pakistan, India found a receptive ear in breakthrough, but then another terrorist attack, Washington. When President made a this time in in 2008, derailed the process. celebrated trip to India in 2000, he stopped at a Clearly, US officials were not entirely successful in Pakistani airport to lecture the country about the influencing Pakistani behavior, but their efforts evils of terrorism. were credible enough for the Indian government India already was seen as an important potential not to take military action against Pakistan in re- ally when President Bush took office. Washington taliation for the attack. regarded India as a diverse and democratic repub- The Obama administration has altered the tra- lic that could balance growing Chinese power in jectory of US-India ties. President Obama wanted Asia. The September 11, 2001, attacks against to end the war in Afghanistan and saw the roots of

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Visit fl etcher.tufts.edu or call 617.627.3040 134 • CURRENT HISTORY • April 2012 the conflict inside Pakistan. His special represen- following the burning of Korans at a NATO base tative to the region, the late Richard Holbrooke, in February 2012 suggest that the Taliban are in spoke about including Kashmir as part of a region- the ascendant. A section of the Islamist insurgency al solution, angering Indians. Holbrooke dropped could certainly break away to make peace with the Kashmir from his agenda, but the tenor of US-India government, but such a peace would likely prove ties has not improved much, even with a presiden- untenable. tial visit in 2010. India has adjusted its expecta- Indian officials see two interrelated problems tions of what this administration will deliver with in Afghanistan. First, India is being formally ex- respect to Pakistan. In addition, the decision to cluded from the Afghan solution, which means, withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by 2014 has applying zero-sum logic, that Pakistan comes out prompted India to redouble its engagement in Af- ahead. Second, they see a diminution of Indian in- ghanistan, which in turn has made Pakistan more terests in Washington. It was not long ago that Da- hostile to American efforts to bring about a politi- vid Petraeus, when he was military commander in cal settlement in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, called Indian interests in Afghanistan legitimate. PRESERVING RESTRAINT New Delhi has been sending strong signals to From the Indian perspective, the Obama admin- Washington. The Rafale decision, for example, was istration has brought opportunity on the China noteworthy not only as the largest single weapons front but danger on the Pakistan front. Indian of- purchase in Indian history, but also because In- ficials are apprehensive that the US departure from dia rejected US-built fighter aircraft. In a country Afghanistan will raise the costs of managing their where military modernization and strategic pur- Pakistan problem. Because Pakistan does not buy pose are divorced, the decision to exclude Ameri- into the idea of military-strategic restraint, its be- can fighters, in spite of the centrality of US-India havior has always presented the toughest tests of ties in New Delhi’s foreign policy, suggests dissat- India’s approach. The potential for direct confron- isfaction with the bilateral relationship, which the tation remains unlikely, especially given the nu- United States needs to address soon. clear standoff, but another is possible. Although strategic restraint remains the natu- The Obama administration envisions a political ral disposition and preferred approach of India’s agreement between Afghan President Hamid Kar- political leaders, there is no guarantee that, in a zai and the Taliban (which also at least temporar- context of reduced American influence, such reti- ily satisfies Tajik and Uzbek leaders and Pakistan) cence will spare from chaos and con- as the ticket to withdrawal from Afghanistan and flict. In Afghanistan, my expectation is that the In- a reduced military presence in South Asia. But it dian government will not act militarily, but it will is hard to see how any agreement might endure in likely defend its interests in ways that jeopardize the face of renewed rivalry among India, Pakistan, peace, such as by renewing help to the Northern , and possibly Russia over influence in Af- Alliance, the umbrella group of factions opposed ghanistan. Regional politics has not really changed to the Taliban. since the , except for the death of bin Laden. Another civil war could return Afghanistan to Recently, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahma- the conditions that led to the rise of the Taliban dinejad and President Karzai visited Pakistan to and Al Qaeda in the first place. Clearly, a regional try to develop a regional approach. The Pakistani settlement is necessary for a durable peace. Hence, government has publicly come out in support of managing New Delhi’s participation in the Afghan the US-backed reconciliation talks in Afghanistan. endgame will be critical, and it will require a re- Whether the Pakistani army and the country’s in- view of US-India policy in Washington. The ob- telligence services, let alone the Taliban, will heed jectives of this review ought to include a clearer Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s call vision of how to engage India in a way that keeps for a settlement is unclear. The violent protests its strategic restraint firmly in place. I