India has dropped rapid strike doctrine against Pakistan: US

India has more or less abandoned its Cold Start doctrine — put in place by the BJP government after the 2001 attack on parliament — designed to punish Pakistan for any future misadventure.

This became evident from the Congress government’s unwillingness to act against Pakistan even after the “audacious and bloody” Mumbai attack of 2008, a cable sent by the US embassy in New Delhi to Washington, DC, and released in public domain by WikiLeaks says.

Cold Start is an operational plan devised by the Indian army to make rapid and limited penetration into Pakistan with the goal of quickly punishing it in the event of terrorist attacks originating from that country without threatening its survival or provoking a nuclear response, the cable pointed out.

“In order to avoid the Indian army’s slow and lumbering military mobilisation process and preserve the element of surprise, Cold Start attacks could begin within 72 hours of the attack order, and would be led by armored spearheads launched from prepared forward positions in Punjab and Rajasthan. As described, the plan emphasises speed and overwhelming firepower: armored formations and accompanying infantry would advance into eastern Pakistan with limited goals in terms of distance and duration,” the cable written in this February said.

The Mumbai attack was a classic case that fit the Cold Start doctrine, but the Congress government did not seem to support it, the Americans observed. They pointed out that the Congress’ lengthy decision-making process — which needs consensus between the party’s high command and senior leaders — instead of a prime minister-led approach is likely to delay Cold Start long enough to make it useless.

“A political green-light to implement Cold Start, fraught as it is with potential nuclear consequences, would involve a highly opaque decision-making process and would likely necessitate broad political consensus, a factor that could prolong the time between a precipitating event such as a Pakistan-linked terror attack and Cold Start deployment.

“The precise function of the cabinet committee on security in ratifying decisions to take military action, the character of the military’s advisory responsibilities to the cabinet, the possible ad hoc nature of decision-making in the upper levels of the Indian government and the role of Congress Party figures like Sonia Gandhi in this process are not clearly understood,” the cable added.

“India refrained from implementing Cold Start even after Mumbai attack, which calls into question India’s willingness to actually adopt the Cold Start option. Second, the Pakistanis have known about Cold Start since 2004, but this knowledge sdoes not seem to have prompted them to prevent terror attacks against India to extent such attacks could be controlled,” it pointed out.