*ISLAMABAD:* India’s expansionist and revisionist mindset is guiding itsforce posture development that makes war look more likely, said former headof Strategic Plans Division (SPD) Lt Gen (retd) Mazhar Jamil.
He was speaking at a seminar on ‘Indian Force Posture Development’organised by Strategic Vision Institute (SVI), an Islamabad-based thinktank, on Tuesday. The seminar coincided with the fifth anniversary of thefounding of the think tank.
The seminar aimed at providing strategic insight into the emerging trendsin Indian force posture, shift in India’s nuclear doctrine and its growingnuclear and missile capabilities.
In a statement issued after the event, SVI said it believed that changes inIndian force posture would affect Pakistan, whose threat perception wasalready India centric. Moreover, the think tank considered that change inIndian nuclear doctrine was alarming as it sought strategic dominance.
“India is pursuing long-term conventional and strategic nuclear forcemodernisation including the introduction of high-end technologies andadvanced systems. India’s conventional force posture has also undergone asignificant change moving from Sundarji Doctrine to the dangerous ColdStart Doctrine (CSD), which is a pro-active and aggressive strategy aimingto engage Pakistan in a limited war under nuclear overhang.
“The Indian strategic thought has, for centuries, been focused on anexpansionist agenda which to this day is the muse for its powermaximization, including the force posture developments. Our neighborfancies itself as a regional hegemon, with designs of grandeur,” Gen Jamilsaid.
“This notion has become so ingrained in their revisionist thinking that alltheir developments – be these conventional or nuclear – are geared towardschanging the status quo and find space for war,” he said, adding that Indiawas developing destabilising doctrines and technologies that made war moreimminent.
Comparing Indian strategic thinking with that of Pakistan, the former SPDchief said Pakistan’s strategic culture, in contrast, “has always beencharacterised by restrained responses, pursuit of conflict resolution andclosing the space for war.” He said Pakistan’s force posture developmentwas in response to the destabilising developments in the neighbourhood.But, he, at the same time, underscored that Pakistan would not enter anarms race.
Strategic restraint, he maintained, was more stabilising than strategiccompetition. He was of the view that peace and stability in the region waspossible if India agreed to mutual restraint and conflict resolution.
Gen Jamil recalled that Pakistan had proposed to India Strategic RestraintRegime with three interlocking elements of nuclear restraint, conventionalarms balance and conflict resolution. However, he regretted that Pakistan’s“hand of friendship” always encountered India’s “aggressive strategicculture”.
He urged India to shun belligerence and war-mongering and resolve disputespeacefully. “I am sure that Pakistan will meet India halfway in peaceefforts,” he added.
SVI president Dr Zafar Iqbal Cheema, on this occasion, said Indian NationalSecurity Strategy (NSS) objective was to maintain an overwhelmingconventional and nuclear weapons capability by developing strategic andconventional offensive capabilities for full spectrum of military conflicts.
The main instruments of India’s force posture were deterrence, coercion andcoercive diplomacy, he said. “The Joint Indian Armed Forces Doctrinecontemplates the use of military force aimed at destruction, disruption andconstraining its adversaries in South Asia, with specific concentration onPakistan,” he added.
“Disruption and constraint also aim at sea denial; including blockade ofadversary’s sea-routes. In low intensity operations, Indian Armed ForcesDoctrine visualizes carrying-out surgical strikes,” he said.