Unversed with the correlation between conventional and nuclear deterrence as it evolved during the Cold War and after, the Indian military and Indian strategic community have yet to come to grips with how the concept of deterrence has expanded and now includes new-age useable technologies unlike nuclear weapons.
This is alarming for two reasons. China has emerged as India’s primary threat. And China not only understands deterrence in totality but is building it against the US. This will ensure that while the US military is not tempted to go to war with it over Taiwan, India will be exceptionally vulnerable to Chinese aggression.
Recently, India’s former envoy for disarmament and non-proliferation, Rakesh Sood wrote in the Hindustan Times that “India’s doctrine is intended to deter the threat and use of nuclear weapons.” Hence, he argues, the Kargil war of 1999 and the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 were not failures of nuclear deterrence. Similarly, India’s former national security advisor, Shivshankar Menon wrote in his book India and Asian Geopolitics, “Since India became an overt nuclear state in 1998, there has been no credible threat of using nuclear weapons against India, no attempt to use nuclear blackmail to change its behaviour. To that extent, India’s nuclear weapons have served their declared purpose.” Both diplomats have had long experience dealing with nuclear issues but is their optimism justified when one looks at the broader spectrum of conflict?
What deterrence really means
Let us first clarify what is meant by deterrence. Nations go to war to accomplish their core objectives which are unrealisable by peaceful means. This requires the war-initiating nation to be confident of adequate war control to achieve its military objectives, as otherwise, the use of force becomes meaningless. Thus, deterrence means denying war control and control over the war escalation ladder to an adversary across the spectrum of conflict which, at present, is not limited to combat space but involves the whole-of-nation.
Let’s now revisit the Cold War from this perspective. In the 1950s, the Soviets had an overwhelming advantage – in terms of conventional forces – over the US military. Though the Soviets were not as technologically advanced as the US, their quantity had a quality of its own. Hence, instead of matching the Soviets’ quantity — tank for tank and gun for gun — US President Dwight Eisenhower introduced battlefield atomic or tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) to thwart any Soviet conventional offensive in the European theatre.
TNWs worked because the US had superiority in strategic nuclear weapons (big yield bombs). Called the New Look strategy, the belief was that if the Soviets retaliated with strategic nukes in response to the US’s TNWs, the latter could counter with a bigger nuclear arsenal. Since the Soviets did not put this US assumption to test, the New Look strategy, which came to be known as the US’s first offset (to undo enemy’s advantage) strategy, worked.
However, in the 1970s, two things happened. While retaining large quantities of conventional weapons, the Soviets managed to match the US in some key conventional technologies. And their strategic nukes inventory matched the US’s nukes in range and yields, making an early use of TNWs extremely risky. A nuclear war without a superior strategic nuclear arsenal became too risky since the US’s control over the nuclear escalation ladder was no longer credible. This led to the US’s second offset strategy, where the reliance on nukes was abandoned. Instead, the US military sought highly accurate and long-range guided conventional munitions, called Precision Guided Munitions (PGMs), that could stop the Soviet conventional forces before they arrayed for an assault.
Making use of battle networks (software systems) and outer space for precision and stand-off attacks, conventional munitions that could achieve battlefield effects comparable with TNWs were fielded. The US used elements of this second offset strategy in the 1991 Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) against Iraq with spectacular success.
Lessons from the US offset strategies
There were two big take-aways from these offset strategies. One, in state-on-state warfare, strong conventional forces are a must for deterrence and for desired war control in combat if deterrence fails. The US’s first and second offset strategies were meant to meet the challenge of huge Soviet conventional forces. And two, nuclear forces do not replace conventional forces, but limit an enemy’s war control and ability to regulate the escalation ladder for ending a war on his terms. Thus, two major powers – for instance, US-Russia or US-China – need credible and separate conventional and nuclear deterrence for war avoidance. This logic will work between two medium powers (India-Pakistan) too. However, this will not work between a major (China) and a medium power (India), where China’s superior conventional forces will be enough for attainment of its military objectives in war.
To take this argument forward, nuclear weapons with India and Pakistan have had no role in crises, conflicts, and wars between the two nations, as both sides since independence have matched conventional capability at campaign level (sum-total of all battles fought) where the war outcome is determined. This explains why the Indian military has been unable to eliminate the military line – established in January 1949 as a ceasefire line, it was re-named with give and take of territory as the line of control after the 1971 war – in the west between India and Pakistan. In the 1971 war, the Indian military offensive was in east Pakistan which became Bangladesh. The then army chief, Gen. Sam Manekshaw gave clear orders to the Indian army’s western army commander, Lt Gen. K.P. Candeth, to firmly hold the western front, which he did by a ‘strategic defence’ posture. Manekshaw had sought six months preparatory time from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for his offensive campaign in the eastern sector.
The army’s readiness for war with Pakistan dipped further after 1990 when it got involved in counter terror operations in Jammu and Kashmir which continue unabated. Consequently, the army leadership neglected the building of conventional deterrence against Pakistan which emboldened the latter to do Kargil in 1999, Mumbai in 2008 and so on. Moreover, the Vajpayee government engaged in a 10-month-long military stand-off (Operation Parakram) in December 2001 against Pakistan but failed to militarily coerce it to end its proxy war into Kashmir. Hence, the claim that India’s nuclear deterrence has ‘worked’ is incorrect, since India lacks conventional deterrence to prevent Pakistan from initiating crises and conflicts.
China is deterring India, that too by conventional means
China’s case is different. Without a shot being fired, India’s prime minister was deterred by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) conventional capabilities when it reportedly occupied 2,000 sq km of Indian territory in east Ladakh in May 2020. While declaring that the PLA had not occupied Indian land which the Indian army had been patrolling since 1993, India signed the unfavourable joint statement for peace with China on September 10, 2020 in Moscow to avoid an escalation.
Not only does China not take India’s nuclear deterrence seriously, it also doesn’t recognise India as a state with nuclear weapons. In case of a war between India and China, if India was to threaten the use of nuclear weapons or attempt to assemble them, the PLA could use any or all three options: destroy Indian nukes’ kill chain with its cyber, electronic, or long-range precision hypersonic glide vehicles; use lower yield nukes in the campaign as a warning signal; or resort to a Launch on Warning (LOW) nuclear posture. This refers to initiating a nuclear strike on detection of an incoming hostile missile. The early detection system comprising ground and space-based components, control centre, and data processing system has been provided to China by Russia. This strategic early warning, command and control, and rapid reaction system is only available with three nations — the US, Russia and China.
China, however, takes deterrence against the US military over Taiwan seriously. The PLA has built a robust conventional deterrence in the shape of an Anti-Access Area Denial (A2/AD) firewall on its mainland which covers the 177 km distance till Taiwan across the strait. The A2/AD is the US military term for what the PLA calls its ‘counter intervention strategy’ and comprises its long and medium range ballistic missiles, hypersonic and supersonic cruise missiles, early warning and long-range radars, Integrated Air and Missile Defence System (IAMDS), long range reconnaissance satellites and aircraft, cyber, electronic, and counter space capabilities.
In addition to IAMDS, another defence layer could be provided by the PLA’s terrestrial and airborne electronic warfare systems capable of jamming hostile aircraft and drone communication. Directed energy weapons with 100kw solid state laser will be used to shoot down drones. With a massive landmass to defend, the PLA had traditionally been obsessed with good IAMDS. The latter is supported by Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) which help to extend its range. These include China’s most advanced AWACS KJ-500, with aerial refuelling capability to improve the aircraft’s persistent air coverage. The PLA’s AEW&C (airborne early warning and communication) aircraft are supported by special mission aircraft like the Y-9 for communication jamming and electronic countermeasures designed to disrupt the enemy’s battlespace awareness at long ranges. Thus, the counter intervention strategy or A2/AD firewall is meant to disallow the US military access to its bases, and to deny the force operational freedom of action once there.
China’s strategy-based military planning offers lessons
Learning lessons from US offset strategies, the PLA is building nuclear deterrence independent of its conventional deterrence. It has built hundreds of new Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), ICBM silos, long range cruise missiles and has, theoretically, moved beyond the triad vectors of land, air, and sea to include space as a new vector with its August 2021 Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) test. The test involved PLA’s Long March 3C rocket armed with a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) which was lobbed at a 150 km altitude in low earth orbit. Once it started orbiting, its re-entry into the atmosphere was planned at a point where the US’s North America Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) radars that face north were evaded. Moreover, once inside the atmosphere, the HVG, with a 2,000 km range, took over with its three unique characteristics of speed higher than Mach 5, high manoeuvrability, and gliding at the higher reaches of the atmosphere to evade terrestrial radars for most of its flight towards the target.
Perhaps, the most important announcement on deterrence, which was not understood by the Indian media, was made by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 20th Party Congress in November 2022. He exhorted the PLA to create a powerful strategic deterrence system. The new concept extends deterrence beyond nuclear weapons to cyber and space warfare, two domains where the PLA more than matches the US military. Cyberspace, which refers to virtual space between computers and internet and everything in between which connects the two, is where multi-media data as text, graphics, audio, and video for communication travels at the speed of light. Once malware (malicious software) in the form of a virus is inserted in cyberspace, it destroys data leading to paralysis, disruption or destruction of commercial and financial facilities, telecommunications, power, hospitals and other essential services networks to create widespread chaos and panic amongst civilians. To be the first responder in peacetime, crisis, pre-war and initial stages of war, cyberwar can make Sun Tzu’s words — ‘victorious warriors win first and then go to war’ — true.
Building sophisticated software cyber weapons requires supercomputers, expertise in nanotechnology and cyber warriors who can write complicated algorithms; China has all three. Through regular cyberattacks, China has acquired knowledge of Indian cyber vulnerabilities which will be used in planning its cyberwar campaign at the highest level. The PLA’s cyberwar campaign will be planned by its Strategic Support Force which reports directly to the highest operational headquarters, the Joint Staff Department, under commander-in-chief Xi Jinping.
From cyber to space
Three exceptional characteristics of cyber weapons which make them an ideal strategic deterrent and warfighting element are: its convergence of virtual domain and physical domain (to destroy physical assets with software weapons, remember the 2010 Stuxnet attack on Iran’s nuclear centrifuges); its non-attributable nature; and its deep cognitive assault on the political leadership by cyber-attacks in whole-of-nation. For this reason, the Pentagon has sought US$ 58.5 billion in the 2024 defence allocation for cyber security of its software networks and communication system against China.
Offensive cyber capabilities are a different game, especially with Artificial Intelligence (AI) since they will be more precise, persistent and make cyber campaigns more effective on a larger scale. With the arrival of 5G networks which will facilitate billions of Internet-of-Things (IoT), cyber defence will become ever more challenging. The main game in cyber will be attacks and more attacks – with humans ‘out of the loop’.
Moreover, China is vigorously pursuing a broad range of counter-space capabilities which include direct-ascent anti-satellite (ASAT) missions, co-orbital ASAT missions, micro satellites, ground-based satellite jammers, directed energy weapons (DEWs), and computer network operations. As I have explained elsewhere, a co-orbital ASAT, placed in space, can remain dormant for years before being activated.
Among the PLA’s non-kinetic capabilities what bothers the US most is its cyber offence, wherein cyber weapons passing through cyberspace could damage, incapacitate, and destroy satellites in all orbits. The other silent killers are DEWs and micro-satellites.
DEWs comprise high powered lasers (HPL) and high-powered microwave (HPM) weapons meant to disrupt and disable satellites by damaging their electronics. The PLA has made strides in microsatellites. Any object (man-made or natural satellite) with mass greater than 10kg and less than 100kg qualifies as microsatellite. These could be debris or weaponized satellites. The latter, with the advantage of being cheap, harder to track, and having good manoeuvrability, can move at high velocity. They could collide with the targeted satellite and destroy it or could lock on the targeted satellite as parasite and destroy its electronics. A form of microsatellite, co-orbital satellites with robotics arms, being developed by the PLA could displace a satellite from its orbit by mechanical means and render it ineffective. India’s intelligence gathering, earth observation, and scientific spacecraft are most susceptible to these co-orbital threats.
Since space is no longer simply militarised (i.e. used passively for Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance (ISR), missiles’ guidance and so on), but weaponised (with non-kinetic and kinetic fires) and provides strategic deterrence, the US military, in 2019, raised its fifth service, the ‘space force’, in addition to army, air force, navy, and marines. This is to meet the Russian, and especially the Chinese, challenge.
Challenge for India
What should the Indian military do? It needs to understand deterrence in its entirety and abandon its capacity-based or threat-based modernisation approach which it has half-heartedly pursued against Pakistan since independence.
It should instead adopt strategy-based modernisation, which the PLA has successfully done against the US military. The strategy-based approach which Indian military leaders are unaware of came about from the US’s Operation Desert Storm in 1990-91. Since the US’s software networks and space-based capabilities were its unique strengths, the PLA decided on ‘systems destruction warfare’ strategy: the ability to destroy US networks with cyber weapons and focus on space and counter space capabilities. Thus, with less financial resources, the PLA created credible conventional deterrence which now has been elevated to strategic deterrence. A model worth emulation.
The writer’s latest book is The Last War: How AI Will Shape India’s Final Showdown with China
