Pakistan's NASR vs India's cold start doctrine

By
Sandeep Ghosh

http://globalgeopolitics.net/wordpress/2011/04/26/nasr-opens-new-chapter-in-india-pakistan-arms-race/

India is not in a position to take on any successful CSD against pakistan in it's current scenario. CSD is not an offensive doctrine to begin with, it is just an effective method for faster deployment of the troops. IBG incursion mandates, air interdiction as precursor to any ground activity, and pre cursor to air interdiction is cruise missile attacks on c4I assets.

The above is the biggest chink in the armor of indian military right now, there aren't enough of cruise missiles inducted, there aren't enough air launched standoff missiles, and nearly 150-200 of the ground strike platforms of IAF like the mig 27M and the Jaguars mandate an air superiority which is not achievable in the needed time frame. 

CSD's and the concept of highly mobile IBG's (light and heavy ) are actually derived (imo) from armored brigades of the ww2 africa conquest where, the light brigades would link up and separate to control certain areas. The idea is to divide the big rolling armor in multiple pronged tentacles which would threaten different assets of PA, Now doesn't that increases the head aches of PA?

What ever a Nasr missle baterry can achieve, same can be achieved via a small tactical nuke dropped from a mirage 3 in battle conditions, hence the concept of tactical nukes on forwarding troops is not a new one, and not a blinder that suddenly PA has fielded which has IA planner sleepless. The heavy IBG's will only roll with proper air interdiction, plus they will have adequate CAS cover from IAF to trace 50-80 kms ahead for PA assets.

As for tactical nuke missile is concerned, what makes pakistanis believe, that in case of pakistani firing one on IA, will not derrive the same on pakistani  armor and command centers, agreed you can fire your battlefield tactical nuke on an indian formation, but with the size of pakistan, a similar response on pakistani airbase or a command center is not very difficult for IA to achieve with India’s tactical battlefield missile prahaar outranging the Pakistani counterpart by twice the range. If pakistan is willing to deliver a tactical nuke I hope they have sufficient planning to absorb the same response, the only difference is this scenario is in pakistani territory, IA will have a very target rich zone to play with.

I'm in now way suggesting that CSD/IBG will run through pakistani defenses like knife through butter, imo Indian damages might be 10 times what pakistan will sustain in the process, but assuming what Indian army will do, or doubting the will of of the Indian military has been a folly for which pakistan has paid dearly in the past. The same attitude emanates from pakistani analysts, when they say, we will hit you with a tactical nuke and your army will just roll over and die, and rest will pack their bags and go back home and shiver in their boots.  

Planning of the conflict holds the major key here, Unless India has more strike platforms, and area defense fighters like LCA mk2 is completely developed which will set free the rest of the strike platforms, IAF will not recommend any high attrition conflict. With nearly DARE III upgrades in Mig 27 and Darin II upgrades on jaguar pending, ground attack platforms are not in their best shape CAS will call for mki/m2000 platforms, blunting the main strike and air domination missions. I don’t see India is a position to take any offensive in current defense plan.  

In the end whichever side has better planning and better redundancies built into their command and control to absorb the initial damage sustained will have the edge. I don’t think India still has the assets needed to successfully pull off any high intensity air/ground operations for next 5 years.

In case of conflict due to Mumbai styled terror operations or others which calls for retaliation, in current power equation the best option would be a naval embargo. In current projections, the biggest disparity among three forces of India and Pakistan,  lies in the navy. Indian navy outguns Pakistani navy by huge margin and as result maximum leverage at sea, and should effectively use it in case of any future limited confrontation.