A Neo-Nixon Doctrine for the Indian Ocean: Helping States Help Themselves
In recent years the Indian Ocean has received significant attention from the defence-intellectual community in the United States. However, the actual strategic importance of the region to US interests is less clear. In an environment of fiscal austerity, if commitments abroad are not firmly linked to interests, any significant involvement in a region of secondary concern could contribute to ‘imperial overstretch’.
India’s Maritime Core Interests
While the maritime doctrine was published by the Indian navy in 2004 and improved upon in 2007, the core interests identified were as seen through the prism of the navy. The national maritime interests of India are distinctly different from the ones identified by the Indian navy and need to be analysed to understand the nuances and the dimensions of such interests so as to promote India's maritime power potential.
A Founding Era for Combined Maritime Security?
In a nutshell the article posits that American naval power, and thus the United States' ability to police the seas, will continue to decline, and that Washington is attempting to compensate by fashioning a new paradigm of multinational maritime security. With no likely candidate for a global navy in the offing the challenge is to create one or more multinational guarantors of free navigation. I attempt to gaze into the future, discerning the likely dynamics of this coalition-building project.
Role of Force in Statecraft: Declining Utility or Inescapable Necessity
Recent debates amongst the strategic community on the utility of force in statecraft have thrown up interesting perspectives that have seldom been debated in India. While great power rivalries, inter-state conflicts and coalition conflicts still remain distinct possibilities in the future, major principles of war fighting, conflict resolution, statecraft and nuclear deterrence have since been turned on their head when confronted by non-state actors and non-traditional threats.
Towards a Proactive Military Strategy: ‘Cold Start and Stop’
The article reviews the Cold Start doctrine in light of the limited war doctrine. It argues that the launch of strike corps entails a risk prone war expansion. War termination should therefore be short of the launch of strike corps offensives. It suggests a 'Cold Start and Stop' strategy with limited offensives by integrated battle groups being used to coerce Pakistan. Pakistani amenability to Indian war aims would be dependent on India offering incentives diplomatically alongside. India's limited war doctrine, currently not articulated, must be informed by such a war waging strategy.
A More Centralised State after War
The government headed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa would easily be deemed the most decisive one in post-independence Sri Lanka. What the government leadership decides is implemented forthwith. The military crushing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that had eluded five successive governments is the most outstanding example. Nothing could stand in the way of the government's decision, neither the fear of failure nor of foreign pressure.
Strategies to Tackle Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW): An Aerial Perspective
The changing nature of warfare, as the twentieth century drew to a close, saw the increased proliferation of conflict between non-state actors and the state. Small wars, wars of liberation, insurgencies, terrorism, proxy wars, sub-conventional warfare and a host of other terminologies emerged that attempted to fingerprint this genre of low spectrum warfare. Initially, it was felt that it was risky to use air power in this kind of warfare and that surface forces were best equipped to fight these wars with only superficial support from air forces.
Signals and Orchestration: India’s Use of Compellence in the 2001–02 Crisis
How effective was the Indian government in sending clear, coercive signals and orchestrating them into coherent messages during 'Operation Parakram' in 2001-02? This study finds that compellence was hampered by three factors: (1) the government kept changing its demands; (2) the lack of adequate civil-military coordination; and (3) the government engaged in a dual-track policy of direct coercion of Pakistan, while simultaneously engaging the United States to put pressure on Pakistan. Ultimately, these two policy strands worked at cross-purposes to each other.
