Sunday, January 31, 2010
Six recent articles: January 2010
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100126/edit.htm#6
Tribune
January 26, 2010
Internal security scenario may deteriorateby Gurmeet Kanwal
Though the year 2009 witnessed a marginal improvement in India’s external security environment, internal security continued to deteriorate in view of the heightened activities of the Maoist-Naxalite terrorists. The unstable regional security environment, unresolved territorial and boundary disputes with China and Pakistan and continuing internal security challenges pose serious national security threats to India.
Future conventional conflicts on the Indian subcontinent will flow out of unresolved territorial and boundary disputes in Jammu and Kashmir and along the unsettled border with China and will be predominantly land battles supported extensively by the air force.
While the probability of a conflict with China is low, patrol face-offs in no-man’s land are common and these could result in armed clashes, leading to another border conflict. Such a conflict is likely to be limited in area and the application of force levels.
Though the conflict is likely to be predominantly a land battle, air power will need to be employed extensively, including attack helicopters and armed helicopters.
An extensive use will be made of artillery firepower from 155mm Howitzers and long-range rocket launchers. The Chinese may resort to the employment of conventionally armed SRBMs against the Indian forces, communication centres, logistics installations and choke points such as bridges.
Though a conflict at sea is highly unlikely in the 2020-25 time frame, the PLA Navy may be expected to begin operating in the northern Indian Ocean region by about 2015, ostensibly to safeguard China’s sea lanes for oil, gas and trade.
Consequently, Indian Navy ships are likely to be shadowed by PLA submarines and occasionally even by surface ships, particularly during naval exercises.
It is now emerging clearly that the Pakistan army is unlikely to allow the new civilian dispensation to govern unfettered. Hence, hostility towards India will remain a key objective of Pakistan’s security policies.
The present ceasefire along the LoC will hold only as long as it suits the Pakistan army’s interests. The Pakistan army and the ISI will continue to encourage, aid and abet infiltration across the LoC.
The most likely conflict scenario is that of retaliatory Indian air and ground strikes across the LoC if there is credible intelligence of the involvement of any organ of the Pakistani state in a future Mumbai-type terror attack anywhere in India.
While India will calibrate its response carefully to control escalation, a short-sharp conflict cannot be ruled out and it may be necessary to mobilise the armed forces again.
Another possibility is that of a Kargil-type misadventure. This time it may be executed by the Pakistan army with help from LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen sleeper cells by occupying terrain features in remote areas like Hill Kaka and the Shamsabari range north of Bandipur in Kashmir Valley. They may declare these as liberated zones.
India may choose to strike across the LoC at carefully selected targets with its Air Force. In this scenario large-scale conflict is unlikely as India will once again exercise restraint. Artillery firepower will be extensively employed on military targets on and across the LoC.
Fighting on the LoC is likely to be limited in scope. Rear area security will be a major issue and will require the deployment of large numbers of para-military personnel as terrorists will disrupt the move of army convoys and supplies.
The probability of the conflict spilling over to the plains sector is extremely limited. In the maritime domain, the Pakistan navy will adopt a defensive posture.
However, the Pakistan navy will lose no opportunity to encourage and even abet terrorist strikes on Indian assets such as oil and gas rigs and shipping. The Pakistan navy is likely to operate with a greater degree of confidence once Chinese PLA navy ships begin to use the Gwadar port as a naval base.
A low-grade insurgency will continue to fester in J&K despite serious government efforts at reconciliation. However, the situation in the North-eastern states will gradually improve due to socio-economic growth and political maturity.
The worst internal security challenge will come from the rising tide of Left wing extremism or Maoist/Naxalite terrorism as the state and central governments continue to waver in their approach.
The Maoists will challenge the state by bringing small towns in the tribal belt under their political and security control.
At this stage, the Army will be called in to stem the rot even though it neither has the numbers nor the wherewithal to intervene effectively over thousands of square kilometres of jungle-covered terrain. Countries inimical to India will exploit the situation by providing arms, ammunition, equipment and financial support to the Maoists.
Home-grown Indian jihadis are increasingly joining the pan-Islamic ‘movement’. Groups like the Indian Mujahideen will become more sophisticated in their attacks. They will be more difficult to apprehend as they will form cellular structures in which no terrorist will know more than two other people.
Terrorists with software expertise may launch cyber attacks on computer-controlled communications, transportation, power and commercial networks to cripple the Indian economy. Maritime and chemical and biological terrorism will increase considerably.
While the probability of nuclear terrorism is low, radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) may be used to spread panic and create hysteria. India will also need to enhance its vigil over its island territories as South-East Asian terrorist organisations will use these as secure bases.
All of these emerging threats will require far greater intelligence effort than has been the case so far and comprehensive inter-ministerial, inter-departmental, inter-agency and inter-security forces coordination to defeat successfully.
The writer is the Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.
http://www.deccanheraldepaper.com/svww_zoomart.php?Artname=20100102a_010100008&ileft=243&itop=77&zoomRatio=130&AN=20100102a_010100008
http://www.deccanheraldepaper.com/svww_index1.php
Deccan Herald
January 2, 2010
BORDER DISPUTE WITH CHINA
Time to mark LAC
Demarcation of the LAC without prejudice to each other’s position on the dispute, would promote mutual confidence.
by Gurmeet Kanwal
Relations between India and China are fairly stable at the strategic level. Political and economic relations are much better now than these have been since the 1962 war. Mutual economic dependence is growing rapidly and bilateral trade has crossed $50 billion. The two countries have been cooperating in international fora like WTO talks and climate change negotiations. There has even been some cooperation in energy security as well.
However, at the tactical level, China has of late been exhibiting a markedly aggressive political, diplomatic and military attitude. The security relationship, in particular, has the potential to act as a spoiler and will ultimately determine whether the two Asian giants will clash or cooperate for mutual gains.
China continues to be in physical occupation of large areas of Indian territory. On Aksai Chin plateau in Ladakh, China is in physical possession of approximately 38,000 sq km of Indian territory since the mid-1950s. In addition, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq km of Indian territory to China in 1963 in the Shaksgam Valley of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, north of the Siachen Glacier, under a bilateral boundary agreement that India does not recognise.
Through this area China built the Karakoram highway that now provides a strategic land link between Sinkiang, Tibet and Pakistan. China continues to stake its claim to about 96,000 sq km of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet. Chinese interlocutors have repeatedly claimed that the Tawang Tract, in particular, is part of Tibet and that the merger of this area with Tibet is non-negotiable. China’s often stated official position is that the reunification of Chinese territories is a sacred duty.
It is not so well known that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, implying de facto control after the 1962 war, is yet to be physically demarcated on the ground and delineated on military maps. The LAC is quite different from the disputed 4,056 km long boundary between India and Tibet. The un-delineated LAC is a major destabilising factor as incidents such as the Nathu La clash of 1967 and the Wang Dung standoff of 1986 can recur.
Early in 2005, India and China had agreed to identify ‘guiding principles and parameters’ for a political solution to the five-decade old dispute. Many foreign policy analysts hailed it as a great leap forward. However, in the case of Tawang, the Chinese have already gone back on the agreed parameter that ‘settled populations will not be disturbed.’ This is not the first time that India signed a ‘feel good’ agreement with the Chinese. Objections raised
Objections Raised
In fact, despite the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement (BPTA) signed with the Chinese in 1993 and the agreement on confidence building measures in the military field signed in 1996, border guards of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have intruded repeatedly into Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh.
They have even objected to Indian road construction efforts.
These intrusions have been periodically reported in the press and discussed in parliament.
While no violent incident has taken place, there have been occasions when Indian and Chinese patrols have met face-to-face before backing off.
Such meetings have an element of tension built into them and the possibility of an armed clash can never be ruled out.
There is an inherent contradiction in sending soldiers to patrol what they are told and believe are Indian areas and simultaneously telling them that they must not under any circumstances fire on ‘intruding’ Chinese soldiers. This is the reason why it is operationally critical to demarcate the LAC on the ground and map. Once that is done, the inadequacy of recognisable terrain features can be overcome GPS satellite technology to accurately navigate up to the agreed and well-defined LAC on the ground and avoid transgressing it even unintentionally.
Demarcation of the LAC without prejudice to each other’s position on the territorial dispute would be an excellent confidence building measure. China’s intransigence in exchanging maps showing the alignment of the LAC in the western and the eastern sectors, while talking of lofty guiding principles and parameters to resolve the territorial and boundary dispute, is neither understandable nor condonable. It can only be described as another attempt to put off the dispute ‘for future generations to resolve,’ as Deng Xiao Ping had famously told Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988.
The military gap between Indian and China is growing steadily as the PLA is modernising at a rapid pace and Indian modernisation plans are mired in red tape. China’s negotiating strategy is to stall resolution of the dispute till the Chinese are in a much stronger position in terms of comprehensive national strength so that they can dictate terms.
It is in India’s interest to strive for an early resolution of the territorial dispute with China so that India has only one major military adversary to contend with. It is in this direction that the government of India must nudge the Chinese leadership during future meetings of the political interlocutors on the territorial dispute.
(The author is director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi)
http://www.spslandforces.net/story.asp?id=9
SP’s Land Forces
China Showcases Trans-Regional Mobility
Gurmeet Kanwal and Monika Chansoria
The two-month long manoeuvres witnessed approximately four divisions, or 50,000 troops, of the People’s Liberation Army criss-crossing the country
On the eve of its 60th anniversary on October 1, 2009 the People’s Republic of China opted yet again to showcase its military prowess to the world. China’s largest ever military exercise Stride 2009 (Kuayue) was employed as a means to issue a clear message that the Chinese armed forces have come a long way from being a rustic and bucolic ‘Red Army’ that waged a ‘People’s War’ six decades ago. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) put on display its most modern equipment. Its units flaunted innovative methods to deploy, operate and sustain the mix of old and new equipment that is now held by operational formations.
In what could be described as a belligerent showcasing of military capabilities and consequent willingness to use them, the PLA tested its prowess by undertaking the Stride 2009 exercises, which commenced on August 12, 2009 and continued for two months. The Chinese press reported these exercises as the PLA’s “largest-ever tactical event, in which they will be mobilised and transported vast distances across the nation”. The two-month long manoeuvres witnessed approximately four PLA divisions (50,000 troops) criss-crossing the country representing as many as four Chinese Military Regions (MRs), including Lanzhou, Shenyang, Jinan and Guangzhou. The exercises principally were ground operations although the PLA Air Force provided the necessary support in moving troops and providing air cover.
Multiple mission scenarios
The aim of these manoeuvres was to test and practice ‘trans-regional mobility’ that focuses on moving field formations within China from one of its seven MRs to another. The exercise focused on implementing the 2007 Training Outline for informationised training and included multiple mission scenarios—amphibious landing, air assault, close air support—under complex electro-magnetic environments. The Chinese press extensively reported PLA’s multi-mode movements by ground, rail (including high speed trains), water and/or air. China’s neighbours watched carefully as the trans-regional mobility experience could well be used out-side China’s borders, especially if neighbouring countries permit movement of PLA units through or over their territory.
For the past two decades, it has been well known that the Chinese held substantial drills every year in what was projected as experiments in capacity-building in the event that it became necessary to use force to settle the Taiwan dispute. However, the Kuayue exercises indicate a major transformation in the pattern. For the first time, these were not directed at rehearsing an amphibious assault on Taiwan, but instead centre on the South China Sea. It may be recalled that a perpetual source of inter-state tensions between the Southeast Asian nations and China have been territorial disputes over islands in the South China Sea.
The Stride 2009 exercises are in line with what was proclaimed in the Chinese 2006 White Paper on National Defence. It expressed clear Chinese aspirations to seek world power status. Towards this end, the first target to be achieved was the creation of a modern force capable of defeating a moderate-sized adversary—namely Taiwan, Vietnam or India by 2010. Therefore, overt deployments and large-scale military manoeuvres are, in fact, a pointer to the Chinese resolve to back diplomacy with the use of military force to solve outstanding disputes.
Training for integrated operations
China’s latest 2008 White Paper on National Defence foreshadowed the renewed emphasis on ground force training observed in Stride 2009. There were clear indications that the Chinese armed forces were training for “integrated joint operations” on future battlefields, in line with the strategic requirements of high mobility operations and three-dimensional assault. There has been a perceptible shift in the PLA’s posture from regional defence to trans-regional mobility. It is gradually making its units small, modular and multi-functional in organisation through appropriate downsizing and structural reform. While accelerating the development of aviation, light mechanised and information counter-measure forces, it is giving priority to the development of tactical missiles, surface-to-air missiles and special operations forces, so as to increase its capabilities for land-air integrated operations, long-distance manoeuvres, rapid assault and special operations.
Soon after Stride 2009 was completed, the PLA Air Force’s 15th Airborne Corps conducted a similar 20-day, large-scale, multi-modal transportation, trans-regional exercise called Airborne Movement 2009 (Kongjiang Jidong), beginning mid-October 2009. The Airborne Movement 2009 paralleled the tasks that army divisions performed during Stride 2009. More than 13,000 troops were airlifted and began marching through Hubei, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces. Heavy equipment, including ZBD-03 Airborne Fighting Vehicles, which were seen in the October 1 parade, was transported by rail while other personnel moved by road convoys to the exercise area in central China. The official Chinese Xinhua news agency reported the event as the “largest-ever Chinese airborne force trans-regional campaign mobility (sic) comprehensive training exercise”.
Considering that Stride and Airborne Movement 2009 were touted to be successful by higher headquarters, the relatively rapid movement of large units across the borders of Military Regions could indicate the need for fewer units—thus setting the stage for more personnel cuts and force reductions. As part of the PLA’s long-term modernisation programme, considerable quantities of new equipment have entered the PLA inventory over the past decade. However, the subsequent training of personnel to maintain and operate the new gear will remain a Herculean task.
Foreign Military Observers
Beginning October 21, 2009, a joint exercise named ‘Vanguard 2009’ (Qianfeng) got underway at the Queshan Combined Arms Training Base. According to the People’s Daily, the main participants were the armoured brigade of the 20th Group Army, the 1st Army Aviation Regiment, an element of the 15th Airborne Corps and aircrafts from units from the Air Force of Guangzhou and Jinan Military Regions. The Deputy Commander of the Jinan MR, Lieutenant General Feng Zhaoju claimed, “This exercise is the PLA’s first joint operation and joint training activity for basic campaign army groups in the true sense”—an apt illustration of the period of transforming doctrinal guidance to actual implementation of tactical and operational concepts. The PLA invited over 200 foreign military observers to witness Vanguard 2009, in which a division of the 14th Group Army and a PLA Air Force aviation division in the Chengdu MR experimented with air support to ground operations whilst conducting independent joint operations.
Major General Xu Jingnian, Commander of the 20th Group Army pointed out that while they were able to resolve issues pertaining to voice command and digital communications, communication weaknesses continued to remain the biggest challenge for the exercise. He stressed, “How to achieve mutual connections, real-time intelligence gathering and sharing among various service branches is the biggest issue… We are still unable to achieve seamless [communications] connectivity.”
These exercises showcasing China’s rapid military modernisation and growing professionalism, combined with its increasing economic clout, reflect China’s enhanced comprehensive national power. With its growing power and influence in Asia, China’s poses a long-term strategic challenge to nations in the region including India, with which Beijing has a long-standing territorial dispute. It also demonstrates the transformation underway in the PLA today and its efforts to further improve its capabilities. The diverse missions and multifarious demands of winning ‘local wars under conditions informationisation’ are challenges that the PLA confronts vis-à-vis realising its strategic goal of building RMA-ready armed forces by the mid-21st century. Clearly, the PLA is receiving enhanced political guidance regarding its responsibilities and missions.
(Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) and Dr Monika Chansoria is Research Fellow, CLAWS, New Delhi.)
http://www.idyb.com/imr/current_issue.php
Indian Military review
January 2010 (Inaugural Issue)
US Arms Sales to Pakistan
India must Caution its Strategic Partner
Gurmeet Kanwal
On October 13, 2009, Air Chief Marshal Rao Quamar Suleman, Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), accepted the first F-16 Block 52 aircraft on behalf of his nation at the Lockheed Martin facility at Fort Worth, Texas. The remaining aircraft will be delivered in 2010. The total order, worth US$ 5.1 billion, is for 12 F-16Cs and six F-16Ds. When completed, it will raise the total number of F-16s in service with the PAF to 54. The Pakistan Air Force received its first F-16, in the Block 15 F-16A/B configuration, in 1982.
Earlier, the United States (US) Defense Security Cooperation Agency had notified Congress of a Foreign Military Sale to Pakistan of 115 M109A5 155mm self-propelled howitzers as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised by Pakistan, could be as high as $56 million.
This is not the first time that the US has offered major arms packages to Pakistan – nor will it be the last. The US had co-opted Pakistan as a frontline state in its fight against communism during the Cold War and armed it with Patton tanks, F-86 Sabre Jets and F-104 Starfighters, among other weapons and equipment. Despite strong US assurances, all of these were used against India. US-Pak cooperation was expanded further when the erstwhile Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the CIA gave Pakistan huge quantities of weapons for the Afghan mujahideen. These included shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles, some of which were recovered by the Indian army from Pakistan’s terrorist mercenaries in Kashmir. However, as soon as the last Soviet tank left Afghan soil, the US dropped Pakistan like a hot potato and slapped sanctions on it.
Post-September 11, 2001, the US not only ignored Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation, but also its emergence as the new hub of Islamist fundamentalist terrorism. It also tolerated General Musharraf’s dictatorial regime because it suited US national interests in the war against terrorism. US designation of Pakistan as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) in March 2004 had irritated Indian policy planners because Indo-US relations had just begun to improve. The “next steps in strategic partnership” (NSSP) had been announced only in January 2004 and India was looking forward to a comprehensive engagement with the US. The Indo-US strategic partnership is now on a firm footing, but aberrations such as the sale of major conventional arms run the risk of damaging the growing relationship.
The sale of conventional arms to Pakistan ostensibly to fight terrorism has been criticised even in the US. A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report has questioned the sale: "It (the F-16 Block 52) incorporates advanced weapons and avionics for air-to-air combat that appear unnecessary for counterinsurgency operations. Less expensive and less sophisticated aircraft such as attack helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and combat search and rescue aircraft would appear to have greater utility in combating insurgents and other non-state actors than supersonic fighter aircraft." It is another matter that Pakistan has been actually using fighter aircraft to strike targets on ground in Swat and South Waziristan. These are tactics that are bound to generate a severe backlash against its armed forces, as has been witnessed in a spate of attacks against senior army personnel in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The US justifies arms sales to Pakistan on several grounds. Besides the need to continue to retain Pakistan’s support in the hunt for al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, the US realises the fragility of the civilian regime in the face of Islamist hardliners in the army, the ISI and the country. It sees the Pakistan army as a stabilising force in a country that is being gradually Islamised beyond redemption. The US feels that it must do all that it can to keep the civilian regime in power. The US is also deeply concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into Jihadi hands if there is an Islamist coup. Hence, the US feels inclined to offer some sops to satisfy Pakistan’s corps commanders at regular intervals. The sale of eight Orion maritime surveillance aircraft, the Phalanx gun systems and the 2,000 TOW anti-tank-cum-bunker busting missiles falls in this category. Also, India and Pakistan are among the largest arms buyers in the world today and no US administration can neglect the military-industrial complex.
Though the sale of the Orion reconnaissance aircraft will make things relatively more difficult for the Indian Navy, they do not pose a direct new threat to India. The proposed sale indicates a US design to engage the Pakistan Navy in joint reconnaissance and patrolling of the sea lanes in the Gulf region by bolstering its capability while a similar exercise is being undertaken with the Indian Navy in the southern Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Straits. Clearly, the US is planning to cooperate with the Indian Navy through its Honolulu-based Pacific Command and with the Pakistan Navy through its Central Command. Such an arrangement will also keep the Indian and Pakistan navies from having to launch joint operations and undertake search, seizure and rescue operations together.
If India wishes to influence US arms sales decisions, it must develop adequate leverages to make the US reconsider the pros and cons very carefully. The supply of a new batch of F-16 aircraft will certainly enhance the strike capabilities of the PAF even though the Indian Air Force will still continue to enjoy both qualitative and quantitative superiority. India is justified in seeing the move to go ahead with the sale of the F-16s as an US attempt to balance its strategic partnership with India by once again propping up Pakistan as a regional challenger.
As far the Indian armed forces are concerned, the new F-16s and Orion aircraft must be seen as nothing more than additional targets in the air and on the tarmac of Karachi airbase for the IAF and the army’s Special Forces commandos – to be dealt with militarily.
(The author is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.)
Defence and Security of India DSI
November 2009
The Small Arms Arsenal
The increased presence of small arms has fuelled militant and insurgency movements across South Asia
Gurmeet Kanwal and Monika Chansoria
South Asia is arguably the second most dangerous global hotspot after West Asia and intractable radical extremism in the Af-Pak area is nudging it rapidly towards acquiring the pole position. One of the major reasons for this dubious distinction is the large-scale proliferation and easy availability of small arms and light weapons (SALW).
Since the end of the Cold War, the era of major inter-state wars, normally classified as conventional conflict, has been gradually drawing to a close. Its place has been taken by intra-state sub-conventional conflict in which the intensity of conflict and the levels of violence are low but violence is sustained over much longer time periods. In the South Asian context, the burgeoning trade in SALW, mostly illicit, has spawned more than 250 militant and insurgency movements in which small arms constitute the core weapons in the arsenal of extremist elements.
The vivid impact of personal and man-portable weapons became the primary reason for the expansion of the definition of “small arms” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nearly three decades ago. NATO re-classified small arms and light weapons as “all crew-portable direct fire weapons of a calibre less than 50mm… (including those with) a secondary capability to defeat light armour and helicopters.” As per available UN estimates, there are approximately 640 million small arms across the world, of which, only about 226 million are in the possession of armed forces and law enforcing agencies. India with a small arms arsenal estimated at 6.3 million, stands sixth in the global ranking. About one per cent of the global holdings, i.e., 6.4 million weapons [nearly the size of India’s arsenal] are believed to be in the hands of militants, insurgents, terrorist groups and networks, and other non-state actors. Significantly, at least 22 UN peacekeeping and rescue missions have been launched in scenarios where the foremost weapons of war used by the opposing forces were essentially SALW.
As the epicentre of diverse armed conflicts, ranging from asymmetric warfare, ethnic conflicts to separatist movements, South Asia has witnessed exponential proliferation of SALW in recent decades. The Indian sub-continent’s susceptibility to small arms proliferation can be attributed to the fact that SALW are the most readily available option for non-state actors engaged in intra-state asymmetric warfare and state-sponsored proxy wars. Additionally, technological sophistication has made SALW increasingly more compact and lighter and added ominously to their firepower. When the rapid-fire Soviet Kalashnikov and the US M-16 variety of automatic assault rifles and hand grenades, which had constituted the standard inventory of soldiers for several decades, came into the hands of non-state actors, their ability to reduce the asymmetry with that of the security forces increased manifold. In fact, it gave the extremists an advantage in conducting hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.
While India itself is far from an island of clam, it is ringed by an arc of instability. Festering insurgencies in the countries around India have added to India’s woes. Ethnic insurgent groups from India’s north-eastern states have been seeking sanctuaries both in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In fact, Myanmar plays unwilling host to as many as 33 armed ethnic insurgent groups. Its army has been fighting these groups for many decades and has cooperated with the Indian army in launching joint operations to destroy sanctuaries and bass across India’s border.
After the liberation of Bangladesh, many of the firearms used during that period were never fully accounted for and continued to remain in circulation. According to Major General Syed Muhammad Ibrahim (Retd), as many as 128 crime syndicates in Bangladesh were using 400,000 illegal SALW. In fact, gun-related violence facilitated the spread of organised crime, undermined fragile democratic politics and fuelled sectarian violence in Bangladesh. Insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts over the past few decades has further added to the demand for small arms. The easy opportunity for money-laundering has resulted in the emergence of Bangladesh as the main transit point for at least five major militant groups that are active in northeastern India, especially the United Liberation front of Assam (ULFA). It is also a convenient transit route for the flow of illegal weapons from Southeast Asia.
Nepal, which was earlier another conduit for small arms proliferation in South Asia, has now become an end user itself as the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army is a big buyer of SALW. The Maoist insurgency launched in 1996 spurred the spread of small arms in Nepal. The PLA guerrillas supplemented their modest arsenal with hundreds of weapons seized in raids on police outposts. The number of weapons in the Terai region along the border with India also gradually increased and some of these quite naturally found their way across the open, porous border into UP and Bihar. The employed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by the Maoists were based on explosives stolen from road construction projects.
In the case of Sri Lanka, the civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan armed forces drove the small arms predicament of the island nation. Widespread proliferation of small arms began in 1987. Soon the LTTE managed to weave an international network to procure SALW through its sympathisers in the Diaspora. The LTTE also added to its arsenal by seizing stockpiles from the Sri Lankan army. It has been estimated that as much as 80 per cent of LTTE’s arsenal came from the Sri Lankan Force’s stocks.
In the mid-1980s the LTTE diversified its arms acquisition so as to exploit all possible sources and routes. Its agents began networking with the arms dealers in Southeast Asia. They used many small ports and jetties in Myanmar for receiving and for the transshipment of weapons. Chinese AK-56, US M-16s, LMGs, MMGs, Singapore-made assault rifles and 2.5-inch mortars dominated the LTTE munitions stores. The LTTE soon established linkages with groups inimical to Indian security and became a leading contributor to small arms proliferation in India. Also, LTTE operations in Myanmar received increased attention once the going got tough for them in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE is reported to have established a naval base in Twante. Phuket in Thailand became a crucial exit point and an arms bazaar for Chinese small arms.
Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the consequent cross-border flow of weapons, an estimated 30 per cent of the SALW provided by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI to the Afghan resistance were diverted for other purposes. During 1980-84, old Chinese made rifles began to replace Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan. With more than 50-70 trucks moving every day, around 65,000 tonnes of weapons passed through the northern areas. Meanwhile, the circulation of Kalashnikov rifles increased manifold in Pakistan as it sponsored, armed, equipped and trained the Taliban to take over in Kabul. The ‘gun culture’ had long existed in the NWFP and FATA and the adjacent tribal areas with most weapons coming in from Darra Adamkhel – an area that boasts having 2,600 arms shops and five gun factories. Approximately seven million small arms stoked the embers of the Afghan conflict.
China as a Key Supplier
The Chinese angle to SALW proliferation in South Asia cannot be ignored. Chinese weapons gained immense popularity among the insurgent groups in the region as they were competitively priced and low-level officials offered counter-trade agreements. The Chinese weapons pipeline continued to provide for the Afghan conflict and permeated into Myanmar’s underground markets along the Thai border. Beginning with the Type 56 rifle, China produced and offered for sale five different varieties of rifles (Type 56, 68, 79, 81 and 5.56 Type CQ), allied light machine guns and sub-machine guns. China also became the prime official supplier to Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan (including anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons). Significantly, large numbers of weapons of Chinese origin have been seized in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh.
The Chinese supplied small arms to Indian insurgent groups in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura for many years up to the late-1970s. Thereafter, while Chinese SALW continued to be recovered by the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and in the north-eastern states, their origin could not be pinpointed directly to official Chinese sources as these came in mostly through the Thailand-Southeast Asian route. Whether this is a deliberate attempt by the Chinese government or the PLA to destabilise India, or it can be attributed to corruption at lower levels, has not been easy to be ascertain.
In a statement with far reaching consequences, India’s Home Secretary, G K Pillai, said on November 9, 2009 that the Maoists in India were receiving small arms from China. “Chinese are big suppliers of small arms…” Pillai asserted. Earlier, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had said in an interview in October 2009 that the Maoists were acquiring weapons through Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly Nepal since the Indo-Nepal border is a porous border. The easy availability of SALW further fuels their demand as India continues to counter long drawn-out insurgencies and a ‘proxy war’ waged through state-sponsored terrorism by a perfidious neighbour.
The Numbers Add up in India
India has witnessed around 152 militant movements since independence. Of these, 65 are believed to be active in one form or the other at present. Pakistan is still the primary source of small arms that are India bound. It uses SALW as political and military tools against New Delhi. Islamabad facilitates smuggling of SALW both through sea and land routes to ISI-supported terrorist organisations and sleeper cells across India. The funding for SALW is organised through hawala channels from private sources from other countries including Saudi Arabia, via Bangladesh and Nepal, through crime and extortion and from religious institutions for ‘social purposes’. The transfer of small arms takes place through formal and clandestine routes and legal and black/gray markets.
Since 1989-90, Indian security forces have seized huge stocks of arms and ammunition along the LoC in J&K alone. Between 1990 and 2005, as many as 28,000 assault rifles of the AK-47 series; 1,300 machine guns; 2,000 rocket launchers; 365 sniper rifles; 10,000 assorted pistols; 63,000 hand grenades; seven million rounds of ammunition; 6,200 land mines and IEDs and 37,000 kg of explosives have been recovered from various hideouts in J&K during counter-proxy war operations. It is well known that there are no ordnance factories in J&K.
India’s north-eastern states too have witnessed insurgency since the past four decades owing to a well organised network for smuggling weapons. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN, IM and K groups), introduced the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to the Kachins, a resilient tribe from Myanmar. In fact, it was widely reported in 1986 that Paresh Baruah, a top commander of ULFA, had travelled through north-west Myanmar and paid the Kachins a substantial sum of money to begin training and to arrange for the supply of weapons from the arms bazaars in Thailand and smuggling networks operating on the Myanmar-China route.
As camps in the Chittagong area in Bangladesh became operational by 1989, they facilitated entry into Assam through the Cachar and Barrack Valley corridors. By the mid-1990s, the Bangladesh connection revealed its real potential. Using Bangladesh as an exit point, the ULFA managed to establish contact with arms dealers in Thailand and as far as Romania. This was possibly the beginning of contacts with arms dealers in Cambodia from whom ULFA started accessing huge numbers of weapons. It paid for these in hard currency primarily banked in Nepal. At Cox’s Bazaar, another prominent transit route for weapons, ULFA cadres coordinated their arms acquisition and operational strategies with the NSCN and other insurgent groups that had bases in the area.
Conclusion
With left wing extremism on the ascendant across central India and no end in sight to long-standing insurgencies in J&K and the north-eastern states, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons has become a major security challenge for India. In this dial-an-AK-47 age, those who have the money can acquire SALW quite easily from unscrupulous wheeler-dealers across the globe. When indigenously produced country-made pistols and revolvers are added to the clandestinely acquired small arms’ numbers, India emerges as a leading light weapons. The possession of small arms inevitably creates a proclivity to use them and the exponential growth of the gun culture cannot but add to the growing levels of violence in Indian society.
The government of India’s intelligence agencies must pool in their resources and work in tandem with the state governments and their agencies to identify the sources, the funding channels and routes of small arms proliferation so as to systematically bring this growing menace to an end through political, diplomatic and, where necessary, military means. Also, India must work towards nudging the SAARC countries and those in its extended neighbourhood towards endorsing the Arms Trade Treaty at the UN so as to be able to more comprehensively confront this mounting challenge.
About the Authors
Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi. Dr. Monika Chansoria is Research Fellow, CLAWS.
(As submitted for publication.)
http://www.dsalert.org/TopStories.aspx?TopStoryId=23
Defence and Security Alert
January 2010
Indian Artillery Modernisation
Gurmeet Kanwal
Tribune
January 26, 2010
Internal security scenario may deteriorateby Gurmeet Kanwal
Though the year 2009 witnessed a marginal improvement in India’s external security environment, internal security continued to deteriorate in view of the heightened activities of the Maoist-Naxalite terrorists. The unstable regional security environment, unresolved territorial and boundary disputes with China and Pakistan and continuing internal security challenges pose serious national security threats to India.
Future conventional conflicts on the Indian subcontinent will flow out of unresolved territorial and boundary disputes in Jammu and Kashmir and along the unsettled border with China and will be predominantly land battles supported extensively by the air force.
While the probability of a conflict with China is low, patrol face-offs in no-man’s land are common and these could result in armed clashes, leading to another border conflict. Such a conflict is likely to be limited in area and the application of force levels.
Though the conflict is likely to be predominantly a land battle, air power will need to be employed extensively, including attack helicopters and armed helicopters.
An extensive use will be made of artillery firepower from 155mm Howitzers and long-range rocket launchers. The Chinese may resort to the employment of conventionally armed SRBMs against the Indian forces, communication centres, logistics installations and choke points such as bridges.
Though a conflict at sea is highly unlikely in the 2020-25 time frame, the PLA Navy may be expected to begin operating in the northern Indian Ocean region by about 2015, ostensibly to safeguard China’s sea lanes for oil, gas and trade.
Consequently, Indian Navy ships are likely to be shadowed by PLA submarines and occasionally even by surface ships, particularly during naval exercises.
It is now emerging clearly that the Pakistan army is unlikely to allow the new civilian dispensation to govern unfettered. Hence, hostility towards India will remain a key objective of Pakistan’s security policies.
The present ceasefire along the LoC will hold only as long as it suits the Pakistan army’s interests. The Pakistan army and the ISI will continue to encourage, aid and abet infiltration across the LoC.
The most likely conflict scenario is that of retaliatory Indian air and ground strikes across the LoC if there is credible intelligence of the involvement of any organ of the Pakistani state in a future Mumbai-type terror attack anywhere in India.
While India will calibrate its response carefully to control escalation, a short-sharp conflict cannot be ruled out and it may be necessary to mobilise the armed forces again.
Another possibility is that of a Kargil-type misadventure. This time it may be executed by the Pakistan army with help from LeT, JeM and Hizbul Mujahideen sleeper cells by occupying terrain features in remote areas like Hill Kaka and the Shamsabari range north of Bandipur in Kashmir Valley. They may declare these as liberated zones.
India may choose to strike across the LoC at carefully selected targets with its Air Force. In this scenario large-scale conflict is unlikely as India will once again exercise restraint. Artillery firepower will be extensively employed on military targets on and across the LoC.
Fighting on the LoC is likely to be limited in scope. Rear area security will be a major issue and will require the deployment of large numbers of para-military personnel as terrorists will disrupt the move of army convoys and supplies.
The probability of the conflict spilling over to the plains sector is extremely limited. In the maritime domain, the Pakistan navy will adopt a defensive posture.
However, the Pakistan navy will lose no opportunity to encourage and even abet terrorist strikes on Indian assets such as oil and gas rigs and shipping. The Pakistan navy is likely to operate with a greater degree of confidence once Chinese PLA navy ships begin to use the Gwadar port as a naval base.
A low-grade insurgency will continue to fester in J&K despite serious government efforts at reconciliation. However, the situation in the North-eastern states will gradually improve due to socio-economic growth and political maturity.
The worst internal security challenge will come from the rising tide of Left wing extremism or Maoist/Naxalite terrorism as the state and central governments continue to waver in their approach.
The Maoists will challenge the state by bringing small towns in the tribal belt under their political and security control.
At this stage, the Army will be called in to stem the rot even though it neither has the numbers nor the wherewithal to intervene effectively over thousands of square kilometres of jungle-covered terrain. Countries inimical to India will exploit the situation by providing arms, ammunition, equipment and financial support to the Maoists.
Home-grown Indian jihadis are increasingly joining the pan-Islamic ‘movement’. Groups like the Indian Mujahideen will become more sophisticated in their attacks. They will be more difficult to apprehend as they will form cellular structures in which no terrorist will know more than two other people.
Terrorists with software expertise may launch cyber attacks on computer-controlled communications, transportation, power and commercial networks to cripple the Indian economy. Maritime and chemical and biological terrorism will increase considerably.
While the probability of nuclear terrorism is low, radiological dispersal devices (RDDs) may be used to spread panic and create hysteria. India will also need to enhance its vigil over its island territories as South-East Asian terrorist organisations will use these as secure bases.
All of these emerging threats will require far greater intelligence effort than has been the case so far and comprehensive inter-ministerial, inter-departmental, inter-agency and inter-security forces coordination to defeat successfully.
The writer is the Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.
http://www.deccanheraldepaper.com/svww_zoomart.php?Artname=20100102a_010100008&ileft=243&itop=77&zoomRatio=130&AN=20100102a_010100008
http://www.deccanheraldepaper.com/svww_index1.php
Deccan Herald
January 2, 2010
BORDER DISPUTE WITH CHINA
Time to mark LAC
Demarcation of the LAC without prejudice to each other’s position on the dispute, would promote mutual confidence.
by Gurmeet Kanwal
Relations between India and China are fairly stable at the strategic level. Political and economic relations are much better now than these have been since the 1962 war. Mutual economic dependence is growing rapidly and bilateral trade has crossed $50 billion. The two countries have been cooperating in international fora like WTO talks and climate change negotiations. There has even been some cooperation in energy security as well.
However, at the tactical level, China has of late been exhibiting a markedly aggressive political, diplomatic and military attitude. The security relationship, in particular, has the potential to act as a spoiler and will ultimately determine whether the two Asian giants will clash or cooperate for mutual gains.
China continues to be in physical occupation of large areas of Indian territory. On Aksai Chin plateau in Ladakh, China is in physical possession of approximately 38,000 sq km of Indian territory since the mid-1950s. In addition, Pakistan illegally ceded 5,180 sq km of Indian territory to China in 1963 in the Shaksgam Valley of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, north of the Siachen Glacier, under a bilateral boundary agreement that India does not recognise.
Through this area China built the Karakoram highway that now provides a strategic land link between Sinkiang, Tibet and Pakistan. China continues to stake its claim to about 96,000 sq km of Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet. Chinese interlocutors have repeatedly claimed that the Tawang Tract, in particular, is part of Tibet and that the merger of this area with Tibet is non-negotiable. China’s often stated official position is that the reunification of Chinese territories is a sacred duty.
It is not so well known that the Line of Actual Control (LAC) between India and China, implying de facto control after the 1962 war, is yet to be physically demarcated on the ground and delineated on military maps. The LAC is quite different from the disputed 4,056 km long boundary between India and Tibet. The un-delineated LAC is a major destabilising factor as incidents such as the Nathu La clash of 1967 and the Wang Dung standoff of 1986 can recur.
Early in 2005, India and China had agreed to identify ‘guiding principles and parameters’ for a political solution to the five-decade old dispute. Many foreign policy analysts hailed it as a great leap forward. However, in the case of Tawang, the Chinese have already gone back on the agreed parameter that ‘settled populations will not be disturbed.’ This is not the first time that India signed a ‘feel good’ agreement with the Chinese. Objections raised
Objections Raised
In fact, despite the Border Peace and Tranquillity Agreement (BPTA) signed with the Chinese in 1993 and the agreement on confidence building measures in the military field signed in 1996, border guards of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) have intruded repeatedly into Arunachal Pradesh and Ladakh.
They have even objected to Indian road construction efforts.
These intrusions have been periodically reported in the press and discussed in parliament.
While no violent incident has taken place, there have been occasions when Indian and Chinese patrols have met face-to-face before backing off.
Such meetings have an element of tension built into them and the possibility of an armed clash can never be ruled out.
There is an inherent contradiction in sending soldiers to patrol what they are told and believe are Indian areas and simultaneously telling them that they must not under any circumstances fire on ‘intruding’ Chinese soldiers. This is the reason why it is operationally critical to demarcate the LAC on the ground and map. Once that is done, the inadequacy of recognisable terrain features can be overcome GPS satellite technology to accurately navigate up to the agreed and well-defined LAC on the ground and avoid transgressing it even unintentionally.
Demarcation of the LAC without prejudice to each other’s position on the territorial dispute would be an excellent confidence building measure. China’s intransigence in exchanging maps showing the alignment of the LAC in the western and the eastern sectors, while talking of lofty guiding principles and parameters to resolve the territorial and boundary dispute, is neither understandable nor condonable. It can only be described as another attempt to put off the dispute ‘for future generations to resolve,’ as Deng Xiao Ping had famously told Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1988.
The military gap between Indian and China is growing steadily as the PLA is modernising at a rapid pace and Indian modernisation plans are mired in red tape. China’s negotiating strategy is to stall resolution of the dispute till the Chinese are in a much stronger position in terms of comprehensive national strength so that they can dictate terms.
It is in India’s interest to strive for an early resolution of the territorial dispute with China so that India has only one major military adversary to contend with. It is in this direction that the government of India must nudge the Chinese leadership during future meetings of the political interlocutors on the territorial dispute.
(The author is director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi)
http://www.spslandforces.net/story.asp?id=9
SP’s Land Forces
China Showcases Trans-Regional Mobility
Gurmeet Kanwal and Monika Chansoria
The two-month long manoeuvres witnessed approximately four divisions, or 50,000 troops, of the People’s Liberation Army criss-crossing the country
On the eve of its 60th anniversary on October 1, 2009 the People’s Republic of China opted yet again to showcase its military prowess to the world. China’s largest ever military exercise Stride 2009 (Kuayue) was employed as a means to issue a clear message that the Chinese armed forces have come a long way from being a rustic and bucolic ‘Red Army’ that waged a ‘People’s War’ six decades ago. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) put on display its most modern equipment. Its units flaunted innovative methods to deploy, operate and sustain the mix of old and new equipment that is now held by operational formations.
In what could be described as a belligerent showcasing of military capabilities and consequent willingness to use them, the PLA tested its prowess by undertaking the Stride 2009 exercises, which commenced on August 12, 2009 and continued for two months. The Chinese press reported these exercises as the PLA’s “largest-ever tactical event, in which they will be mobilised and transported vast distances across the nation”. The two-month long manoeuvres witnessed approximately four PLA divisions (50,000 troops) criss-crossing the country representing as many as four Chinese Military Regions (MRs), including Lanzhou, Shenyang, Jinan and Guangzhou. The exercises principally were ground operations although the PLA Air Force provided the necessary support in moving troops and providing air cover.
Multiple mission scenarios
The aim of these manoeuvres was to test and practice ‘trans-regional mobility’ that focuses on moving field formations within China from one of its seven MRs to another. The exercise focused on implementing the 2007 Training Outline for informationised training and included multiple mission scenarios—amphibious landing, air assault, close air support—under complex electro-magnetic environments. The Chinese press extensively reported PLA’s multi-mode movements by ground, rail (including high speed trains), water and/or air. China’s neighbours watched carefully as the trans-regional mobility experience could well be used out-side China’s borders, especially if neighbouring countries permit movement of PLA units through or over their territory.
For the past two decades, it has been well known that the Chinese held substantial drills every year in what was projected as experiments in capacity-building in the event that it became necessary to use force to settle the Taiwan dispute. However, the Kuayue exercises indicate a major transformation in the pattern. For the first time, these were not directed at rehearsing an amphibious assault on Taiwan, but instead centre on the South China Sea. It may be recalled that a perpetual source of inter-state tensions between the Southeast Asian nations and China have been territorial disputes over islands in the South China Sea.
The Stride 2009 exercises are in line with what was proclaimed in the Chinese 2006 White Paper on National Defence. It expressed clear Chinese aspirations to seek world power status. Towards this end, the first target to be achieved was the creation of a modern force capable of defeating a moderate-sized adversary—namely Taiwan, Vietnam or India by 2010. Therefore, overt deployments and large-scale military manoeuvres are, in fact, a pointer to the Chinese resolve to back diplomacy with the use of military force to solve outstanding disputes.
Training for integrated operations
China’s latest 2008 White Paper on National Defence foreshadowed the renewed emphasis on ground force training observed in Stride 2009. There were clear indications that the Chinese armed forces were training for “integrated joint operations” on future battlefields, in line with the strategic requirements of high mobility operations and three-dimensional assault. There has been a perceptible shift in the PLA’s posture from regional defence to trans-regional mobility. It is gradually making its units small, modular and multi-functional in organisation through appropriate downsizing and structural reform. While accelerating the development of aviation, light mechanised and information counter-measure forces, it is giving priority to the development of tactical missiles, surface-to-air missiles and special operations forces, so as to increase its capabilities for land-air integrated operations, long-distance manoeuvres, rapid assault and special operations.
Soon after Stride 2009 was completed, the PLA Air Force’s 15th Airborne Corps conducted a similar 20-day, large-scale, multi-modal transportation, trans-regional exercise called Airborne Movement 2009 (Kongjiang Jidong), beginning mid-October 2009. The Airborne Movement 2009 paralleled the tasks that army divisions performed during Stride 2009. More than 13,000 troops were airlifted and began marching through Hubei, Henan, Anhui, and Jiangsu provinces. Heavy equipment, including ZBD-03 Airborne Fighting Vehicles, which were seen in the October 1 parade, was transported by rail while other personnel moved by road convoys to the exercise area in central China. The official Chinese Xinhua news agency reported the event as the “largest-ever Chinese airborne force trans-regional campaign mobility (sic) comprehensive training exercise”.
Considering that Stride and Airborne Movement 2009 were touted to be successful by higher headquarters, the relatively rapid movement of large units across the borders of Military Regions could indicate the need for fewer units—thus setting the stage for more personnel cuts and force reductions. As part of the PLA’s long-term modernisation programme, considerable quantities of new equipment have entered the PLA inventory over the past decade. However, the subsequent training of personnel to maintain and operate the new gear will remain a Herculean task.
Foreign Military Observers
Beginning October 21, 2009, a joint exercise named ‘Vanguard 2009’ (Qianfeng) got underway at the Queshan Combined Arms Training Base. According to the People’s Daily, the main participants were the armoured brigade of the 20th Group Army, the 1st Army Aviation Regiment, an element of the 15th Airborne Corps and aircrafts from units from the Air Force of Guangzhou and Jinan Military Regions. The Deputy Commander of the Jinan MR, Lieutenant General Feng Zhaoju claimed, “This exercise is the PLA’s first joint operation and joint training activity for basic campaign army groups in the true sense”—an apt illustration of the period of transforming doctrinal guidance to actual implementation of tactical and operational concepts. The PLA invited over 200 foreign military observers to witness Vanguard 2009, in which a division of the 14th Group Army and a PLA Air Force aviation division in the Chengdu MR experimented with air support to ground operations whilst conducting independent joint operations.
Major General Xu Jingnian, Commander of the 20th Group Army pointed out that while they were able to resolve issues pertaining to voice command and digital communications, communication weaknesses continued to remain the biggest challenge for the exercise. He stressed, “How to achieve mutual connections, real-time intelligence gathering and sharing among various service branches is the biggest issue… We are still unable to achieve seamless [communications] connectivity.”
These exercises showcasing China’s rapid military modernisation and growing professionalism, combined with its increasing economic clout, reflect China’s enhanced comprehensive national power. With its growing power and influence in Asia, China’s poses a long-term strategic challenge to nations in the region including India, with which Beijing has a long-standing territorial dispute. It also demonstrates the transformation underway in the PLA today and its efforts to further improve its capabilities. The diverse missions and multifarious demands of winning ‘local wars under conditions informationisation’ are challenges that the PLA confronts vis-à-vis realising its strategic goal of building RMA-ready armed forces by the mid-21st century. Clearly, the PLA is receiving enhanced political guidance regarding its responsibilities and missions.
(Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) and Dr Monika Chansoria is Research Fellow, CLAWS, New Delhi.)
http://www.idyb.com/imr/current_issue.php
Indian Military review
January 2010 (Inaugural Issue)
US Arms Sales to Pakistan
India must Caution its Strategic Partner
Gurmeet Kanwal
On October 13, 2009, Air Chief Marshal Rao Quamar Suleman, Chief of the Air Staff, Pakistan Air Force (PAF), accepted the first F-16 Block 52 aircraft on behalf of his nation at the Lockheed Martin facility at Fort Worth, Texas. The remaining aircraft will be delivered in 2010. The total order, worth US$ 5.1 billion, is for 12 F-16Cs and six F-16Ds. When completed, it will raise the total number of F-16s in service with the PAF to 54. The Pakistan Air Force received its first F-16, in the Block 15 F-16A/B configuration, in 1982.
Earlier, the United States (US) Defense Security Cooperation Agency had notified Congress of a Foreign Military Sale to Pakistan of 115 M109A5 155mm self-propelled howitzers as well as associated equipment and services. The total value, if all options are exercised by Pakistan, could be as high as $56 million.
This is not the first time that the US has offered major arms packages to Pakistan – nor will it be the last. The US had co-opted Pakistan as a frontline state in its fight against communism during the Cold War and armed it with Patton tanks, F-86 Sabre Jets and F-104 Starfighters, among other weapons and equipment. Despite strong US assurances, all of these were used against India. US-Pak cooperation was expanded further when the erstwhile Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan. In the 1980s, the CIA gave Pakistan huge quantities of weapons for the Afghan mujahideen. These included shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missiles, some of which were recovered by the Indian army from Pakistan’s terrorist mercenaries in Kashmir. However, as soon as the last Soviet tank left Afghan soil, the US dropped Pakistan like a hot potato and slapped sanctions on it.
Post-September 11, 2001, the US not only ignored Pakistan’s nuclear proliferation, but also its emergence as the new hub of Islamist fundamentalist terrorism. It also tolerated General Musharraf’s dictatorial regime because it suited US national interests in the war against terrorism. US designation of Pakistan as a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA) in March 2004 had irritated Indian policy planners because Indo-US relations had just begun to improve. The “next steps in strategic partnership” (NSSP) had been announced only in January 2004 and India was looking forward to a comprehensive engagement with the US. The Indo-US strategic partnership is now on a firm footing, but aberrations such as the sale of major conventional arms run the risk of damaging the growing relationship.
The sale of conventional arms to Pakistan ostensibly to fight terrorism has been criticised even in the US. A Congressional Research Service (CRS) report has questioned the sale: "It (the F-16 Block 52) incorporates advanced weapons and avionics for air-to-air combat that appear unnecessary for counterinsurgency operations. Less expensive and less sophisticated aircraft such as attack helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, and combat search and rescue aircraft would appear to have greater utility in combating insurgents and other non-state actors than supersonic fighter aircraft." It is another matter that Pakistan has been actually using fighter aircraft to strike targets on ground in Swat and South Waziristan. These are tactics that are bound to generate a severe backlash against its armed forces, as has been witnessed in a spate of attacks against senior army personnel in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The US justifies arms sales to Pakistan on several grounds. Besides the need to continue to retain Pakistan’s support in the hunt for al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, the US realises the fragility of the civilian regime in the face of Islamist hardliners in the army, the ISI and the country. It sees the Pakistan army as a stabilising force in a country that is being gradually Islamised beyond redemption. The US feels that it must do all that it can to keep the civilian regime in power. The US is also deeply concerned about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into Jihadi hands if there is an Islamist coup. Hence, the US feels inclined to offer some sops to satisfy Pakistan’s corps commanders at regular intervals. The sale of eight Orion maritime surveillance aircraft, the Phalanx gun systems and the 2,000 TOW anti-tank-cum-bunker busting missiles falls in this category. Also, India and Pakistan are among the largest arms buyers in the world today and no US administration can neglect the military-industrial complex.
Though the sale of the Orion reconnaissance aircraft will make things relatively more difficult for the Indian Navy, they do not pose a direct new threat to India. The proposed sale indicates a US design to engage the Pakistan Navy in joint reconnaissance and patrolling of the sea lanes in the Gulf region by bolstering its capability while a similar exercise is being undertaken with the Indian Navy in the southern Bay of Bengal and the Malacca Straits. Clearly, the US is planning to cooperate with the Indian Navy through its Honolulu-based Pacific Command and with the Pakistan Navy through its Central Command. Such an arrangement will also keep the Indian and Pakistan navies from having to launch joint operations and undertake search, seizure and rescue operations together.
If India wishes to influence US arms sales decisions, it must develop adequate leverages to make the US reconsider the pros and cons very carefully. The supply of a new batch of F-16 aircraft will certainly enhance the strike capabilities of the PAF even though the Indian Air Force will still continue to enjoy both qualitative and quantitative superiority. India is justified in seeing the move to go ahead with the sale of the F-16s as an US attempt to balance its strategic partnership with India by once again propping up Pakistan as a regional challenger.
As far the Indian armed forces are concerned, the new F-16s and Orion aircraft must be seen as nothing more than additional targets in the air and on the tarmac of Karachi airbase for the IAF and the army’s Special Forces commandos – to be dealt with militarily.
(The author is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.)
Defence and Security of India DSI
November 2009
The Small Arms Arsenal
The increased presence of small arms has fuelled militant and insurgency movements across South Asia
Gurmeet Kanwal and Monika Chansoria
South Asia is arguably the second most dangerous global hotspot after West Asia and intractable radical extremism in the Af-Pak area is nudging it rapidly towards acquiring the pole position. One of the major reasons for this dubious distinction is the large-scale proliferation and easy availability of small arms and light weapons (SALW).
Since the end of the Cold War, the era of major inter-state wars, normally classified as conventional conflict, has been gradually drawing to a close. Its place has been taken by intra-state sub-conventional conflict in which the intensity of conflict and the levels of violence are low but violence is sustained over much longer time periods. In the South Asian context, the burgeoning trade in SALW, mostly illicit, has spawned more than 250 militant and insurgency movements in which small arms constitute the core weapons in the arsenal of extremist elements.
The vivid impact of personal and man-portable weapons became the primary reason for the expansion of the definition of “small arms” by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nearly three decades ago. NATO re-classified small arms and light weapons as “all crew-portable direct fire weapons of a calibre less than 50mm… (including those with) a secondary capability to defeat light armour and helicopters.” As per available UN estimates, there are approximately 640 million small arms across the world, of which, only about 226 million are in the possession of armed forces and law enforcing agencies. India with a small arms arsenal estimated at 6.3 million, stands sixth in the global ranking. About one per cent of the global holdings, i.e., 6.4 million weapons [nearly the size of India’s arsenal] are believed to be in the hands of militants, insurgents, terrorist groups and networks, and other non-state actors. Significantly, at least 22 UN peacekeeping and rescue missions have been launched in scenarios where the foremost weapons of war used by the opposing forces were essentially SALW.
As the epicentre of diverse armed conflicts, ranging from asymmetric warfare, ethnic conflicts to separatist movements, South Asia has witnessed exponential proliferation of SALW in recent decades. The Indian sub-continent’s susceptibility to small arms proliferation can be attributed to the fact that SALW are the most readily available option for non-state actors engaged in intra-state asymmetric warfare and state-sponsored proxy wars. Additionally, technological sophistication has made SALW increasingly more compact and lighter and added ominously to their firepower. When the rapid-fire Soviet Kalashnikov and the US M-16 variety of automatic assault rifles and hand grenades, which had constituted the standard inventory of soldiers for several decades, came into the hands of non-state actors, their ability to reduce the asymmetry with that of the security forces increased manifold. In fact, it gave the extremists an advantage in conducting hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.
While India itself is far from an island of clam, it is ringed by an arc of instability. Festering insurgencies in the countries around India have added to India’s woes. Ethnic insurgent groups from India’s north-eastern states have been seeking sanctuaries both in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In fact, Myanmar plays unwilling host to as many as 33 armed ethnic insurgent groups. Its army has been fighting these groups for many decades and has cooperated with the Indian army in launching joint operations to destroy sanctuaries and bass across India’s border.
After the liberation of Bangladesh, many of the firearms used during that period were never fully accounted for and continued to remain in circulation. According to Major General Syed Muhammad Ibrahim (Retd), as many as 128 crime syndicates in Bangladesh were using 400,000 illegal SALW. In fact, gun-related violence facilitated the spread of organised crime, undermined fragile democratic politics and fuelled sectarian violence in Bangladesh. Insurgency in the Chittagong Hill Tracts over the past few decades has further added to the demand for small arms. The easy opportunity for money-laundering has resulted in the emergence of Bangladesh as the main transit point for at least five major militant groups that are active in northeastern India, especially the United Liberation front of Assam (ULFA). It is also a convenient transit route for the flow of illegal weapons from Southeast Asia.
Nepal, which was earlier another conduit for small arms proliferation in South Asia, has now become an end user itself as the Maoists’ People’s Liberation Army is a big buyer of SALW. The Maoist insurgency launched in 1996 spurred the spread of small arms in Nepal. The PLA guerrillas supplemented their modest arsenal with hundreds of weapons seized in raids on police outposts. The number of weapons in the Terai region along the border with India also gradually increased and some of these quite naturally found their way across the open, porous border into UP and Bihar. The employed improvised explosive devices (IEDs) planted by the Maoists were based on explosives stolen from road construction projects.
In the case of Sri Lanka, the civil war between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the Sri Lankan armed forces drove the small arms predicament of the island nation. Widespread proliferation of small arms began in 1987. Soon the LTTE managed to weave an international network to procure SALW through its sympathisers in the Diaspora. The LTTE also added to its arsenal by seizing stockpiles from the Sri Lankan army. It has been estimated that as much as 80 per cent of LTTE’s arsenal came from the Sri Lankan Force’s stocks.
In the mid-1980s the LTTE diversified its arms acquisition so as to exploit all possible sources and routes. Its agents began networking with the arms dealers in Southeast Asia. They used many small ports and jetties in Myanmar for receiving and for the transshipment of weapons. Chinese AK-56, US M-16s, LMGs, MMGs, Singapore-made assault rifles and 2.5-inch mortars dominated the LTTE munitions stores. The LTTE soon established linkages with groups inimical to Indian security and became a leading contributor to small arms proliferation in India. Also, LTTE operations in Myanmar received increased attention once the going got tough for them in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE is reported to have established a naval base in Twante. Phuket in Thailand became a crucial exit point and an arms bazaar for Chinese small arms.
Following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and the consequent cross-border flow of weapons, an estimated 30 per cent of the SALW provided by the CIA and Pakistan’s ISI to the Afghan resistance were diverted for other purposes. During 1980-84, old Chinese made rifles began to replace Kalashnikovs in Afghanistan. With more than 50-70 trucks moving every day, around 65,000 tonnes of weapons passed through the northern areas. Meanwhile, the circulation of Kalashnikov rifles increased manifold in Pakistan as it sponsored, armed, equipped and trained the Taliban to take over in Kabul. The ‘gun culture’ had long existed in the NWFP and FATA and the adjacent tribal areas with most weapons coming in from Darra Adamkhel – an area that boasts having 2,600 arms shops and five gun factories. Approximately seven million small arms stoked the embers of the Afghan conflict.
China as a Key Supplier
The Chinese angle to SALW proliferation in South Asia cannot be ignored. Chinese weapons gained immense popularity among the insurgent groups in the region as they were competitively priced and low-level officials offered counter-trade agreements. The Chinese weapons pipeline continued to provide for the Afghan conflict and permeated into Myanmar’s underground markets along the Thai border. Beginning with the Type 56 rifle, China produced and offered for sale five different varieties of rifles (Type 56, 68, 79, 81 and 5.56 Type CQ), allied light machine guns and sub-machine guns. China also became the prime official supplier to Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Pakistan (including anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons). Significantly, large numbers of weapons of Chinese origin have been seized in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh.
The Chinese supplied small arms to Indian insurgent groups in Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura for many years up to the late-1970s. Thereafter, while Chinese SALW continued to be recovered by the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) and in the north-eastern states, their origin could not be pinpointed directly to official Chinese sources as these came in mostly through the Thailand-Southeast Asian route. Whether this is a deliberate attempt by the Chinese government or the PLA to destabilise India, or it can be attributed to corruption at lower levels, has not been easy to be ascertain.
In a statement with far reaching consequences, India’s Home Secretary, G K Pillai, said on November 9, 2009 that the Maoists in India were receiving small arms from China. “Chinese are big suppliers of small arms…” Pillai asserted. Earlier, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram had said in an interview in October 2009 that the Maoists were acquiring weapons through Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly Nepal since the Indo-Nepal border is a porous border. The easy availability of SALW further fuels their demand as India continues to counter long drawn-out insurgencies and a ‘proxy war’ waged through state-sponsored terrorism by a perfidious neighbour.
The Numbers Add up in India
India has witnessed around 152 militant movements since independence. Of these, 65 are believed to be active in one form or the other at present. Pakistan is still the primary source of small arms that are India bound. It uses SALW as political and military tools against New Delhi. Islamabad facilitates smuggling of SALW both through sea and land routes to ISI-supported terrorist organisations and sleeper cells across India. The funding for SALW is organised through hawala channels from private sources from other countries including Saudi Arabia, via Bangladesh and Nepal, through crime and extortion and from religious institutions for ‘social purposes’. The transfer of small arms takes place through formal and clandestine routes and legal and black/gray markets.
Since 1989-90, Indian security forces have seized huge stocks of arms and ammunition along the LoC in J&K alone. Between 1990 and 2005, as many as 28,000 assault rifles of the AK-47 series; 1,300 machine guns; 2,000 rocket launchers; 365 sniper rifles; 10,000 assorted pistols; 63,000 hand grenades; seven million rounds of ammunition; 6,200 land mines and IEDs and 37,000 kg of explosives have been recovered from various hideouts in J&K during counter-proxy war operations. It is well known that there are no ordnance factories in J&K.
India’s north-eastern states too have witnessed insurgency since the past four decades owing to a well organised network for smuggling weapons. The National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN, IM and K groups), introduced the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) to the Kachins, a resilient tribe from Myanmar. In fact, it was widely reported in 1986 that Paresh Baruah, a top commander of ULFA, had travelled through north-west Myanmar and paid the Kachins a substantial sum of money to begin training and to arrange for the supply of weapons from the arms bazaars in Thailand and smuggling networks operating on the Myanmar-China route.
As camps in the Chittagong area in Bangladesh became operational by 1989, they facilitated entry into Assam through the Cachar and Barrack Valley corridors. By the mid-1990s, the Bangladesh connection revealed its real potential. Using Bangladesh as an exit point, the ULFA managed to establish contact with arms dealers in Thailand and as far as Romania. This was possibly the beginning of contacts with arms dealers in Cambodia from whom ULFA started accessing huge numbers of weapons. It paid for these in hard currency primarily banked in Nepal. At Cox’s Bazaar, another prominent transit route for weapons, ULFA cadres coordinated their arms acquisition and operational strategies with the NSCN and other insurgent groups that had bases in the area.
Conclusion
With left wing extremism on the ascendant across central India and no end in sight to long-standing insurgencies in J&K and the north-eastern states, the proliferation of small arms and light weapons has become a major security challenge for India. In this dial-an-AK-47 age, those who have the money can acquire SALW quite easily from unscrupulous wheeler-dealers across the globe. When indigenously produced country-made pistols and revolvers are added to the clandestinely acquired small arms’ numbers, India emerges as a leading light weapons. The possession of small arms inevitably creates a proclivity to use them and the exponential growth of the gun culture cannot but add to the growing levels of violence in Indian society.
The government of India’s intelligence agencies must pool in their resources and work in tandem with the state governments and their agencies to identify the sources, the funding channels and routes of small arms proliferation so as to systematically bring this growing menace to an end through political, diplomatic and, where necessary, military means. Also, India must work towards nudging the SAARC countries and those in its extended neighbourhood towards endorsing the Arms Trade Treaty at the UN so as to be able to more comprehensively confront this mounting challenge.
About the Authors
Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi. Dr. Monika Chansoria is Research Fellow, CLAWS.
(As submitted for publication.)
http://www.dsalert.org/TopStories.aspx?TopStoryId=23
Defence and Security Alert
January 2010
Indian Artillery Modernisation
Gurmeet Kanwal
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Indo-US Nuclear Deal
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=89034
Indian Express
New Delhi
March 6, 2006
Next steps in the Indo-US deal
GURMEET KANWAL
Posted online: Monday, March 06, 2006 at 0000 hours IST
The Indo-US nuclear deal has been signed. The next step is to get it passed through the US Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). This also entails amending the laws, so that India can receive the same benefits as those states that are a party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Therefore, while the recent agreement is, in one sense, the culmination of a process that began in Washington on July 18, 2005, it will be a long hard grind before India can begin to reap the benefits of this historic deal and be recognised as a nuclear-armed world power.
No one should be under any illusion that the agreement will pass muster with the US Congress simply because the Republicans have the necessary numbers. There are still deeply entrenched mindsets within the US State Department and the non-proliferation ayatollahs are livid that the US has decided to make India an exception. They will lobby hard with senators, Congressmen and women to obstruct its smooth passage. Above all, it is an election year in the US, and members of the Congress will have their ears cocked for dissenting voices back in their constituencies. Politicians everywhere like the sound of their own voice and in the US, in particular, they love to fight phantoms on primetime TV. Hence, India should be prepared to see the US administration being closely questioned about the wisdom of the deal.
Members of Congress will query India's non-proliferation track record, especially the violation of the 'peaceful use' agreement regarding the Canadian-supplied Cirus reactor to produce plutonium for nuclear warheads. They will also demand to know the upper limit that India considers justified on the number of nuclear warheads that it wishes to stockpile for a credible minimum deterrence. They will ask why the US should help India increase its stockpile by providing uranium supplies that will allow India to divert its own uranium for nuclear warheads. Senator John Kerry has said in India this January that vertical proliferation will not be acceptable and that India cannot have an open-ended nuclear warhead programme. And, of course, members will question the wisdom of the administration in accepting India's fast-breeder reactors outside the civilian list.
Another issue that is likely to figure in the Congress is India's quest for nuclear-powered submarines (SSBNs) armed with SLBMs for survivable retaliatory strike capability. Several members of the US Congress have been paranoid about India acquiring such a capability, as they see it as a direct threat to US national security interests. Congressman Tom Lantos (Democrat, California) had called Natwar Singh, India's former minister for external affairs, 'dense' for failing to see the linkage between the nuclear deal and India's support for the US position in the IAEA on the Iranian nuclear crisis. While India has already voted twice with the US on this issue, the connection will undoubtedly come up again when the Congress debates the nuclear deal.
The US has for long hoped that India would support it directly in Iraq by providing an infantry division to take over a sector for counter-insurgency operations, as the Indian army has the capability and the experience to intervene effectively. The BJP-led NDA government had almost agreed to provide a division and then backed out as it had failed to create a national consensus on the issue. With daily casualties mounting, and Iraq on the brink of civil war, this demand will come up again in the Congress as a quid pro quo. Members of the Congress will also ask the Bush administration to explain how the deal with India will benefit American business interests, as General Electric and Westinghouse, the leading nuclear technology suppliers in the US, do not have state-of-the-art technology to meet India's huge demand. It is well known that India is likely to approach France and Russia for nuclear reactors in the short term. Hence the US Congress may look for a big-ticket purchase of weapons and equipment by India like F-16 or F-18 fighter-bombers and may link the passage of the deal to such a purchase. The game has only just begun.
Should India sit back and let the US administration bat on its behalf? That will be a mistake, as there will be many queries that only the Indians in Washington can answer. Well, the battle lines will soon be drawn for the big fight ahead and Ambassador Ronen Sen and his team will have their hands full. Luckily they will have President George W. Bush on their side.
(The writer is director, Security Studies, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)
Indian Express
New Delhi
March 6, 2006
Next steps in the Indo-US deal
GURMEET KANWAL
Posted online: Monday, March 06, 2006 at 0000 hours IST
The Indo-US nuclear deal has been signed. The next step is to get it passed through the US Congress and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). This also entails amending the laws, so that India can receive the same benefits as those states that are a party to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). Therefore, while the recent agreement is, in one sense, the culmination of a process that began in Washington on July 18, 2005, it will be a long hard grind before India can begin to reap the benefits of this historic deal and be recognised as a nuclear-armed world power.
No one should be under any illusion that the agreement will pass muster with the US Congress simply because the Republicans have the necessary numbers. There are still deeply entrenched mindsets within the US State Department and the non-proliferation ayatollahs are livid that the US has decided to make India an exception. They will lobby hard with senators, Congressmen and women to obstruct its smooth passage. Above all, it is an election year in the US, and members of the Congress will have their ears cocked for dissenting voices back in their constituencies. Politicians everywhere like the sound of their own voice and in the US, in particular, they love to fight phantoms on primetime TV. Hence, India should be prepared to see the US administration being closely questioned about the wisdom of the deal.
Members of Congress will query India's non-proliferation track record, especially the violation of the 'peaceful use' agreement regarding the Canadian-supplied Cirus reactor to produce plutonium for nuclear warheads. They will also demand to know the upper limit that India considers justified on the number of nuclear warheads that it wishes to stockpile for a credible minimum deterrence. They will ask why the US should help India increase its stockpile by providing uranium supplies that will allow India to divert its own uranium for nuclear warheads. Senator John Kerry has said in India this January that vertical proliferation will not be acceptable and that India cannot have an open-ended nuclear warhead programme. And, of course, members will question the wisdom of the administration in accepting India's fast-breeder reactors outside the civilian list.
Another issue that is likely to figure in the Congress is India's quest for nuclear-powered submarines (SSBNs) armed with SLBMs for survivable retaliatory strike capability. Several members of the US Congress have been paranoid about India acquiring such a capability, as they see it as a direct threat to US national security interests. Congressman Tom Lantos (Democrat, California) had called Natwar Singh, India's former minister for external affairs, 'dense' for failing to see the linkage between the nuclear deal and India's support for the US position in the IAEA on the Iranian nuclear crisis. While India has already voted twice with the US on this issue, the connection will undoubtedly come up again when the Congress debates the nuclear deal.
The US has for long hoped that India would support it directly in Iraq by providing an infantry division to take over a sector for counter-insurgency operations, as the Indian army has the capability and the experience to intervene effectively. The BJP-led NDA government had almost agreed to provide a division and then backed out as it had failed to create a national consensus on the issue. With daily casualties mounting, and Iraq on the brink of civil war, this demand will come up again in the Congress as a quid pro quo. Members of the Congress will also ask the Bush administration to explain how the deal with India will benefit American business interests, as General Electric and Westinghouse, the leading nuclear technology suppliers in the US, do not have state-of-the-art technology to meet India's huge demand. It is well known that India is likely to approach France and Russia for nuclear reactors in the short term. Hence the US Congress may look for a big-ticket purchase of weapons and equipment by India like F-16 or F-18 fighter-bombers and may link the passage of the deal to such a purchase. The game has only just begun.
Should India sit back and let the US administration bat on its behalf? That will be a mistake, as there will be many queries that only the Indians in Washington can answer. Well, the battle lines will soon be drawn for the big fight ahead and Ambassador Ronen Sen and his team will have their hands full. Luckily they will have President George W. Bush on their side.
(The writer is director, Security Studies, Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi)
Nuclear Numbers
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1499221.cms
Nuclear Numbers
GURMEET KANWAL
The Times of India
April 22, 2006
One of the contentious issues that had threatened to derail the historic nuclear agreement signed by India and the US is the number of nuclear warheads that India needs for credible minimum deterrence.
While the estimates put forward by Indian analysts range from one to two dozen 'survivable' warheads at the lower end of the spectrum to over 400 warheads, these are mainly based on gut judgments and not on cold logic.
Nuclear weapons are political weapons and not weapons of 'fighting'. Their sole purpose is to deter the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. A nation's nuclear force structure depends on its nuclear doctrine and deterrence philosophy.
The number of nuclear warheads that a nation must stockpile depends on availability and quality of weapons-grade fissile material, its mastery of nuclear weapons design technology, the accuracy and reliability of its delivery systems, the fiscal constraints that govern its defence budget, the present and future air and missile defence capability of its adversaries, and their ability to absorb retaliatory nuclear strikes.
If deterrence fails, in keeping with its nuclear doctrine, India will have to absorb a nuclear strike before retaliating against the adversary's major cities and industrial centres.
India's targeting philosophy is based on a 'counter value' (as against 'counter force') strategy of massive punitive retaliation to inflict unacceptable damage to the adversary's major population and industrial centres.
A retaliatory strike capability to destroy eight to 10 major population and industrial centres would be adequate to meet the requirements of deterrence.
For 10 counter value targets to be destroyed in the adversary country, a total of 40 nuclear warheads, at four warheads of 20 to 40 kiloton each per target, would be adequate to cause unacceptable damage in a retaliatory nuclear strike.
This is possible if the probable error of the Agni IRBM delivery systems is taken to be 1,000 metres and a destruction assurance level of 0.7 (about 70 per cent) is considered acceptable.
If the efficiency or overall reliability of India's nuclear delivery system is taken to be between 0.5 and 0.6 (50 to 60 per cent), a reasonable assumption for a modern nuclear force, then 75 warheads must actually be launched for about 40 to 45 warheads to explode successfully over their targets as some missiles may fail to take off, some may veer off course, some may be intercepted and some warheads may either fail to explode or may explode in a sub-optimal manner.
Hence, a minimum of 75 warheads and, of course, their delivery systems must survive the enemy's first strike on Indian targets and be available for retaliation.
Despite the best possible concealment and dispersion measures, approximately 50 per cent of the nuclear warheads and delivery systems may be destroyed in a first strike by the adversary.
It would, therefore, be reasonable to plan a warhead stocking level of at least twice the number of warheads that are actually required to be launched, that is, 150 warheads.
The last aspect to be catered for is a prudent level of reserves for larger than anticipated damage to own nuclear forces in a first strike and for unforeseen eventualities.
Escalation control and war termination strategies would also be dependent on the ability to launch counter-recovery strikes and some fresh strikes. One-third the required number of warheads should be adequate as reserves.
Hence, the total requirement works out to 200 nuclear warheads for a minimum deterrence doctrine with a no-first-use strategy if 10 major population and industrial centres are to be attacked in a retaliatory strike to achieve a 70 to 80 per cent assurance level of destruction.
The safeguard restrictions that India has voluntarily accepted under the agreement with the US and the number of nuclear reactors that it has decided to keep in the military list will ensure that India has adequate fissile material to manufacture 200 plus nuclear warheads.
Treaty obligations will not compromise India's sovereign right to take all steps necessary to assemble a larger number of warheads if needed in future. It is time to let this issue rest and move on.
The writer is with the Observer Research Foundation.
Nuclear Numbers
GURMEET KANWAL
The Times of India
April 22, 2006
One of the contentious issues that had threatened to derail the historic nuclear agreement signed by India and the US is the number of nuclear warheads that India needs for credible minimum deterrence.
While the estimates put forward by Indian analysts range from one to two dozen 'survivable' warheads at the lower end of the spectrum to over 400 warheads, these are mainly based on gut judgments and not on cold logic.
Nuclear weapons are political weapons and not weapons of 'fighting'. Their sole purpose is to deter the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons. A nation's nuclear force structure depends on its nuclear doctrine and deterrence philosophy.
The number of nuclear warheads that a nation must stockpile depends on availability and quality of weapons-grade fissile material, its mastery of nuclear weapons design technology, the accuracy and reliability of its delivery systems, the fiscal constraints that govern its defence budget, the present and future air and missile defence capability of its adversaries, and their ability to absorb retaliatory nuclear strikes.
If deterrence fails, in keeping with its nuclear doctrine, India will have to absorb a nuclear strike before retaliating against the adversary's major cities and industrial centres.
India's targeting philosophy is based on a 'counter value' (as against 'counter force') strategy of massive punitive retaliation to inflict unacceptable damage to the adversary's major population and industrial centres.
A retaliatory strike capability to destroy eight to 10 major population and industrial centres would be adequate to meet the requirements of deterrence.
For 10 counter value targets to be destroyed in the adversary country, a total of 40 nuclear warheads, at four warheads of 20 to 40 kiloton each per target, would be adequate to cause unacceptable damage in a retaliatory nuclear strike.
This is possible if the probable error of the Agni IRBM delivery systems is taken to be 1,000 metres and a destruction assurance level of 0.7 (about 70 per cent) is considered acceptable.
If the efficiency or overall reliability of India's nuclear delivery system is taken to be between 0.5 and 0.6 (50 to 60 per cent), a reasonable assumption for a modern nuclear force, then 75 warheads must actually be launched for about 40 to 45 warheads to explode successfully over their targets as some missiles may fail to take off, some may veer off course, some may be intercepted and some warheads may either fail to explode or may explode in a sub-optimal manner.
Hence, a minimum of 75 warheads and, of course, their delivery systems must survive the enemy's first strike on Indian targets and be available for retaliation.
Despite the best possible concealment and dispersion measures, approximately 50 per cent of the nuclear warheads and delivery systems may be destroyed in a first strike by the adversary.
It would, therefore, be reasonable to plan a warhead stocking level of at least twice the number of warheads that are actually required to be launched, that is, 150 warheads.
The last aspect to be catered for is a prudent level of reserves for larger than anticipated damage to own nuclear forces in a first strike and for unforeseen eventualities.
Escalation control and war termination strategies would also be dependent on the ability to launch counter-recovery strikes and some fresh strikes. One-third the required number of warheads should be adequate as reserves.
Hence, the total requirement works out to 200 nuclear warheads for a minimum deterrence doctrine with a no-first-use strategy if 10 major population and industrial centres are to be attacked in a retaliatory strike to achieve a 70 to 80 per cent assurance level of destruction.
The safeguard restrictions that India has voluntarily accepted under the agreement with the US and the number of nuclear reactors that it has decided to keep in the military list will ensure that India has adequate fissile material to manufacture 200 plus nuclear warheads.
Treaty obligations will not compromise India's sovereign right to take all steps necessary to assemble a larger number of warheads if needed in future. It is time to let this issue rest and move on.
The writer is with the Observer Research Foundation.
