As long as the sub-conventional deterrence holds, the enunciation of the Cold Start doctrine actually introduces a degree of strategic stability in the region.
The current predicament the Military finds itself in can be used constructively by the Services and the government for undertaking the necessary correctives with a sense of urgency and obligation.
People in India have traditionally looked up to the Armed Forces. Corruption in the Armed Forces therefore militates against the spirit of service to the nation. It has to be cleansed wholesale, with effective mechanisms for protecting whistleblowers and taking swift action against the guilty put in place. Caesar’s wife must be beyond reproach.
Non-articulation of India's strategic doctrine lends it to be interpreted and perceived variously. India's security establishment need not be defensive about its strategic doctrine but boldly take on critics in the strategic community. Besides, its articulation would help provide direction to the military in their formulation of military doctrine, planning and acquisitions.
Given the fragility of ISAF’s southern lines of communication passing through Pakistan, India could consider offering a passage through its territory as a meaningful alternative.
It is time that the Indian government through its yet-to-be appointed interlocutors clearly laid the limits and boundaries of the autonomy debate to all the stakeholders.
India has been fairly successful in firewalling the radical blowback emanating from Pakistan in the past and need not be overly worried about the impending US withdrawal.
There is a view that India's approach to national security is largely ad hoc and marked by incompetence. Indians as well as foreign commentators on the country's security policies seem to share this perception. However, India does have a security approach that has a discernible pattern and arguably has been a success. This comment focuses on how India has dealt with internal security since independence.
Terrorism in the Indian hinterland is the result of a complex set of inter-related factors. The development of a jihad culture in Pakistan during the course of the Afghan conflict in the 1980s led to the subsequent Pakistani decision to employ jihad against India as a strategy. The mobilisation of the Hindu Right in India and ensuing communal violence led to the radicalisation of Muslim youth and the resort to terrorism by both Indian Islamists and Muslim criminal networks with help from Pakistan.
