Sandeep Jain writes: Post Op Parakram, there were media reports that India in a major doctrinal shift has adopted the cold start strategy. This meant that India was prepared for war waging rather than war prevention as had been the case till then. This hypothesis was not really confirmed by the official establishment. Pakistan on the other hand believed that indeed a doctrinal shift had taken place in India’s stance. In fact this belief caused consternation in their strategic planners. The Western media also actively debated the possible implications of the same. As a result there was sympathy generation for Pakistan and advocacy to gift them additional military hardware to counter the Indian doctrine of cold start.
Pakistan embarked on a modernisation plan and re-articulation of its strategy in the form of New Concept of War Fighting (NCWF). This is still work in progress but has nevertheless led to better operational preparedness by Pakistan. Thus the perceived cold start strategy of India indirectly helped Pakistan. It also helped the military establishment of Pakistan in further consolidating their political stranglehold due to anti-India sentiment getting stronger.
Has NCWF closed the conventional window for India? The answer is probably NO. NCWF to be fully effective also requires resources and military hardware and Pakistan can only afford limited modernisation due to poor state of its economy. However, it has definitely made the conventional option more difficult for India.
We also heard media reports of the raising of the Mountain Strike Corps for application on the Northern borders. If true, has it similarly impacted China as Cold Start worried Pakistan? In case of China their infrastructure development in TAR was already going on at a breakneck speed even before the declaration by India of this additional formation. The Chinese espousal of the War Zone Campaign had preceded India’s articulation. China unlike Pakistan is not reactive, but instead has been having a very coherent and focussed approach to enhancing its military modernisation, deployment and sustenance capabilities against India. Its doctrinal approach is also not India centric. Thus while reports of raising of the additional strike corps would have been noted with some concern by their military planners, it may not have necessarily caused any major shift in their current doctrine or strategy.
India nonetheless would do well to take a page out of China’s history to ” Hide our capacities and bide our time” lest we end up helping our adversaries.