A Cold Start for Hot Wars? The Indian Army's New Limited War Doctrine

Bibliographic Data

ID11262192
AuthorsWalter C Ladwig (0000-0001-6869-9426, Walter C. Ladwig III is a doctoral candidate in international relations at Merton College at the University of Oxford., corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume32
Issue3
Pages158-190
Publication date2008-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Security (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2889 • E-ISSN: 1531-4804
PublisherMIT Press - Journals (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1162/isec.2008.32.3.158
OpenAlexW2164368093
LanguageEN
Citations received43
References cited23

In response to the perceived inability of the Indian military to leverage its conventional superiority to end Pakistan's “proxy war” in Kashmir, the Indian Army announced a new offensive doctrine in 2004 intended to allow it to mobilize quickly and undertake limited retaliatory attacks on its neighbor, without crossing Pakistan's nuclear threshold. This Cold Start doctrine marks a break with the fundamentally defensive military doctrines that India has employed since gaining independence in 1947. Requiring combined arms operating jointly with the Indian Air Force, Cold Start represents a significant advance in India's conventional military capabilities. Yet, despite the Indian Army's intentions, it risks provoking or escalating a crisis on the subcontinent that could breach the nuclear threshold. Recent military exercises and associated organizational changes indicate that although the Indian Army has made progress toward developing an operational Cold Start capability, particularly in the area of network-centric warfare, the doctrine remains in the experimental stage. Nevertheless, this is a development that deserves further study. As the Indian Army enhances its ability to achieve a quick military decision against Pakistan, the political pressure to employ such a strategy in a crisis will increase—with potentially catastrophic results

Cold war · Development economics · Doctrine · Economics · Independence (probability theory · Leverage (statistics · Military doctrine · Military tactics · Offensive · Operations research · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Post–Cold War era · Computer Science · Engineering · Law · Peacebuilding and International Security · Politics and Conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Middle East · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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