After Uri India’s military reviews the “escalation ladder”

By Ajai Shukla

Business Standard, 21st Sept 2016

Escalation ladder for cross border operations (explanatory text below)

Action	Targets	Weapons & Equipment	Signalling	Counter retaliation	Diplomatic messaging
Strike without physically crossing LoC	Terrorist camps and control centres	Recce assets & BDA*, artillery, Smerch, Brahmos missiles	Restraint: striking terrorist infrastruc-ture only	Alerting own troops to guard against retaliation	India showing restraint by attacking non-state actors
	Pak army posts that support infiltration	As above	Pak Army included in terror infra	As above	Declare that Pak Army is central to terrorism
	Pak army posts & HQs in rear areas	As above	Pak Army institutional role	As above	As above
Strikes across LoC, but without holding  ground	Air strikes on forward camps/posts	Recce & BDA, strike fighters, attack heptrs, SAR** units	Escalation to use of air power	Deployment of national air defence, including ground units	No intent to escalate beyond air strikes
	Air strikes on army depth units, HQs, infrastructure	As above	Intent to punish all involved in terrorism	As above, IAF combat patrols	As above
	Forward unit raids across LoC, Special Forces (SF) raids in depth	SF units, C-130J aircraft & heptrs, artillery, SAR assets	Escalation to use of ground troops	High alert in own posts, guarding of rear against any riposte	No intent to hold ground or escalate to full-scale offensive
Strikes across LoC, with ground being held	Shallow attacks on pre-identified vulnerable enclaves	Forward units with heavy fire support, backed up by reserves	Major escalation to capture of territory	Vulnerable posts, areas beefed up, including on China border	Diplomatic deflecting, e.g. “Will have to confirm”.
	Larger attack to occupy pre-identified territory	Reserve units from back-up formation, fire support	As above	As above. Will probably trigger Pak nuclear threat	Demand for guarantees of ending terrorism
Crossing international border	Air strikes across border and SF ops	Full scale mobilisation for war, including air force & navy	Starting of full-scale war	Trigger Pak air strikes, counter attacks, and nuclear threat	Intense pressure to stop war, threats from China
	Shallow incursions by holding formations	As above	As above	As above	As above
	Deep strikes into Pakistan by tanks of strike corps; naval blockade and air operations	As above	Full scale war	Intensified nuclear threats, with demonstration strike of TNW possible	As above

*    Battle damage assessment resources

**  Search and rescue for aircraft, personnel shot down

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The strike by jihadi militants on Sunday on an army camp near Uri, in which 18 soldiers were killed and 29 injured, has inflamed tensions along the Line of Control (LoC). On Tuesday, the army shot down eight Pakistani militants after intercepting a 15-strong group that was discovered infiltrating from Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK).

With public opinion and the media aroused, and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowing to punish those responsible; and the army’s top operations officer declaring the military would retaliate at a time and place of its choosing, both sides of the LoC are bracing for what might come.

New Delhi has pinned the attack on the Lashkar-e-Toiba, a militia controlled by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), a wing of the Pakistani Army. Home Minister Rajnath Singh has declared Pakistan a “terrorist state” and the Indian Army, already grappling with public turmoil in the Kashmir Valley, is evaluating options to extract revenge for Uri.

Pakistan presents an easy target for an Indian diplomatic offensive against its terror-friendly ways, in western capitals and multilateral forums. However, a calibrated military riposte would need more careful consideration.

Business Standard has discussed India’s options with senior officers close to the planning process. All of them agree the army can easily initiate retaliation. But, thereafter, there would be two sides in the game. Escalation would be both inevitable and unpredictable.

India’s first option is to retaliate through fires (the effect of weapons) without Indian forces physically crossing the LoC. This would involve “fire assaults” on targets across the border, using artillery, missiles, and multi-barrel rocket launchers and Brahmos cruise missiles for deeper-lying targets. A fire assault involves suddenly opening up intense fire with massed weapons on an unsuspecting and carefully chosen target, catching people in the open and inflicting heavy casualties.

Besides weapons, all trans-LoC retaliation would require reconnaissance assets, including satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and electronic warfare (EW) units to identify suitable targets and carry out battle damage assessment (BDA) after a strike. The BDA would determine whether the target had been adequately punished, or whether it needs to be struck again.

Depending upon Pakistan’s response, fire assaults could be escalated through three stages – first targeting terrorist infrastructure, then forward Pakistan Army posts that facilitated infiltration and, finally, Pakistani headquarters (HQs) and installations in the rear.

Each operational level would send a specific signal and require tailor-made diplomatic messaging to manage international opinion. To absorb the inevitable retaliation, the Indian military would need to anticipate and plan appropriately.

In keeping with the theory of “escalation dominance”, the military would seek to dominate each step of the escalation ladder. This would discourage Pakistan from escalating the exchange.

The next level of escalation would involve physically moving troops --- first aircraft and then, if necessary, ground forces --- to attack across the LoC. To manage the risks, India would signal a purely punitive intent, with no intention to actually hold ground across the LoC. Naturally, aircraft and troops that cross the LoC carry the risk of being captured. India’s military would pre-position “search and rescue” (SAR) units and casualty evacuation (casevac) detachments, equipped with helicopters, to retrieve personnel shot down across the LoC, injured ground soldiers and the bodies of those killed.

The third level of escalation would involve the capture and occupation of territory across the LoC, such as vulnerable pockets where the border protrudes into India, or enclaves on the Indian side of a river or stream. This would be a significant escalation and a violation of the Shimla Agreement, which prohibits either side from changing the status quo. Deeper attacks would require India to mobilise reserves, including fire support assets, as well as the air force.

Longstanding intelligence and military assessments indicate that any Indian capture of significant Pakistani territory would trigger a nuclear threat from that country.

The final level of escalation involves Indian offensive operations across the settled international boundary between India and Pakistan --- the so-called Radcliffe Line. In the 1965 war this was done only belatedly by India, when it became clear that the fighting in J&K, i.e. on what is today called the LoC, was not going favourably for India. Today, an Indian large-scale attack across the international boundary would almost certainly trip the Pakistan Army’s nuclear threshold, eliciting a threat to use nuclear weapons. Several Indian strategic planners insist a Pakistani threat would be a bluff. However, the diplomatic pressure on New Delhi would be intense, and it remains unlikely that India’s leadership would successfully resist it.