Pakistan’s Evolving Doctrine and Emerging Force

Posture: Conceptual Nuances and Implied

Ramifications
Sannia Abdullah
Abstract

Pakistan’s strategic planning is inspired both from the US and Russian

war doctrines, and Pakistan has customized those doctrines into regional
adaptations. Treading on the path of nuclear war-fighting force postures,
it remains a challenge to differentiate the thin line between deterrence
stability and escalation control. This challenge is unresolved, even in the
second nuclear age between India and Pakistan. To overcome its
conventional force disadvantage, Pakistan uses a full spectrum
deterrence strategy to blur the gap between conventional and nuclear
war in theory, thus making the possibility of nuclear-use a reality.

Keywords: Full-Spectrum Deterrence, Crises, Ambiguity, Nuclear

Doctrine, Force Posture, Escalation Dominance, Tactical Nuclear
Weapons.
Introduction

South Asia’s news headlines today reflect either the tense political
impasse over Kashmir or the force modernization of the two arch rivals.
The region manifests a deep-rooted lack of trust, a history of crisis
instability, proxy wars, and intermittent exchanges of blame. The
situation offers little hope to overcome the perpetual turmoil. In the
absence of sustainable dialogue, the strategic anxieties of nuclear rivals
have resulted in hot exchanges of words, even in the recent 72nd session
of the United Nations General Assembly. The road to peace seems elusive
in this political atmosphere where both India and Pakistan are locked in
the shackles of history (over disputed Kashmir). Recent tensions mounted
after the terrorist attack on an Indian Army brigade headquarters on 18

Dr. Sannia Abdullah is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for

International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University. She is also
a faculty member in the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-
Azam University since 2011.
80 PAKISTAN HORIZON

September 2016, in Uri (IOK).1 Exchanges of shelling across the Line of

Control (LoC) by the security forces, targeting military posts and killing
innocent civilians, have unfortunately become routine.

On the other hand, the year 2017 in South Asia has seen major
technological advancements in military capability. Two missile tests by
Pakistan occurred in a single month. On 9 January 2017, Pakistan tested
a submarine launched cruise missile Babur-3 (450 km range) which
claimed to have achieved second-strike capability against India. To
reinforce deterrence, the missile test was a ‘manifestation of the strategy
of measured response to nuclear strategies and postures being adopted in
Pakistan’s neighborhood.’2 Two weeks later, Pakistan tested another
surface-to-surface missile Ababeel (2200 km range) capable of carrying
multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs). According
to an ISPR press release, the Ababeel test ‘aimed at ensuring
survivability of Pakistan’s ballistic missiles in the growing regional
Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) environment.’3 India, in turn, tested its
indigenously developed supersonic missile interceptor capable of
destroying incoming enemy ballistic missiles at low altitude. The second
test from India aims to consolidate its multilayered defence system.4 The
same year, India announced its joint armed forces doctrine 2017, carrying
discreet reference to India’s counterforce targeting as an option.5

Pakistan’s pursuit of improved missile capabilities is purportedly part

of its newly declared doctrine of full-spectrum deterrence. This term was
first used in an ISPR press release when Pakistan tested its tactical
nuclear weapon HATF IX (Nasr). Pakistani officials believe that full-
spectrum deterrence supports a credible minimum deterrence with added
capabilities to ‘plug the gaps’ to avert conventional war. The concept of
full-spectrum deterrence is relatively new to academic discourse. In the
past, the US military used a similar term called ‘full spectrum
dominance’ as part of the US vision 2020 laid out by the Department of
Defense. ‘Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of US forces,
operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any

1 Nyshka Chandran, ‘India, Pakistan Tensions Mount after Attack in Kashmir’,

CNBC, 20 September 2016, https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/modi-news-india-
pakistan-tensions-mount-after-attack-in-kashmir.html, accessed on 13 March
2018.
2 ‘Pakistan Attains “Second Strike Capability” with Test-Fire of Submarine-
Launched Cruise Missile,’ Dawn (Karachi), 11 January 2017.
3 ISPR Press Release No PR-34/2017-ISPR, 24 January 2017.
4 ‘India’s Indigenous Supersonic Interceptor Missile Successfully Test-Fired,’
Hindustan Times, 1 March 2017.
5 See Joint Doctrine Indian Armed Forces, Ministry of Defence, April 2017.
PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 81

situation across the range of military operations.’6 In short, full-spectrum

dominance improves the coordination among forces to synchronize their
operations within their armed forces and also among their allies. The four
key components of the US strategy of full-spectrum dominance are
‘dominant maneuver, precision engagement, focused logistics and full-
dimensional protection.’7 The replacement of ‘dominance’ with
‘deterrence’ changes the entire understanding of the concept when
applied in South Asia. Full-spectrum dominance centred US war plans on
conventional military operations. To the contrary, Pakistan’s equivalent
of full-spectrum deterrence blurs the distinction between conventional
and strategic deterrence.

So far, Pakistani academic circles discuss full-spectrum deterrence

from the perspective of tactical nuclear weapons within the framework of
overall deterrence logic.8 The Pakistani views, typically presented by
former military officials and academic scholars, have analysed the role of
tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs) /battlefield nuclear weapons as a
stabilizing factor.9 The key observations in the debate focus on the
following beliefs: first, NASR (tactical/battlefield nuclear weapon) is
believed to have deterred India’s Cold Start10 type manoeuvre by

6 Jim Garamone, ‘Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance,’ 2

June 2000, US Department of Defense, available at http://archive.defense.gov/
news/newsarticle.aspx?id=45289, accessed on 13 March 2018.
7 Ibid.
8 See Zafar Khan and Rizwana Abbasi, ‘Pakistan in the Global Nuclear Order’,
Nuclear Paper Series 1, Islamabad Papers, pp.16-18, http://issi.org.pk/wp-
content/uploads/2016/02/Nuclear-Paper-Series-No.-1.pdf, accessed on 13 March
2018.
9 ‘Pakistan Needs Short Range ‘Tactical’ Nuclear Weapons to Deter India’,
Tribune (Islamabad), 24 March 2015; ‘A Conversation with Gen. Khalid
Kidwai’, (transcript from the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Conference, 23 March
2015), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, available at
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/03-230315carnegieKIDWAI.pdf, p. 9; Adil
Sultan, ‘Pakistan’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Impact of Drivers and
Technology on Nuclear Doctrine,’ Strategic Studies, 31 & 32, Nos. 4 and 1
Winter/Spring), pp. 154-155.
10 Cold Start is part of the Indian military strategy to mobilize its holding corps
divided into six battle groups with offensive capabilities to launch a border
offensive against Pakistan. The shallow penetration is tasked to destroy
Pakistan’s military capabilities within 72 to 96 hours in an air-land battle. For
details, see Walter C. Ladwig III, ‘A Cold Start for Hot Wars: Indian Army’s
New Limited War Doctrine’, International Security, Vol. 32, No. 3, Winter
2007/08, pp. 158–190; Arun Sehgal, ‘Cold Start: New Doctrinal Thinking in the
Army’, CLAWS Journal, Summer 2008, pp. 117–122; Sannia Abdullah, ‘Cold
Start in Strategic Calculus’, IPRI Journal XII, No. 1, Winter 2012, pp. 1-27.
82 PAKISTAN HORIZON

lowering the nuclear threshold;11 second, tactical nuclear weapons are

meant for deterrence and not for war fighting;12 and third, Pakistan will
exercise centralized control while employing NASR batteries in the
battlefield to offset the possibility of a ‘mad colonel’ scenario.13

However, it is important to note that full-spectrum deterrence is not

only about tactical nuclear weapons. There is room in academic literature
to explore the conceptual nuances of full-spectrum deterrence in
Pakistan's strategic thinking. What are the technological ramifications of
this doctrine? Is NASR part of Pakistan’s deterrence or war-fighting
strategy, and what implications can spiral from this strategy? To answer
these questions, this article examines official statements, press releases,
and personal/documented interviews, as well as some secondary sources,
to arrive at a possible interpretation of full-spectrum deterrence.

Contemporary strategic environment in South Asia

South Asia’s security doctrines have been evolving since the Kargil War
in 1999. The ‘ugly stability’ of the region is not only mired with terrorism
but is also a consequence of strong convictions on both sides to win peace
under the shadow of nuclear weapons. During past crises, both India and
Pakistan not only drafted their nuclear doctrines, operationalized C4I2SR
(command, control, communications, computers, intelligence,
information, surveillance and reconnaissance) capabilities but also
continued to achieve second-strike force postures. The legacy of conflict
does not alter South Asia’s security landscape in terms of turbulence;
however, because of technological aspects, the security picture appears
more complicated than ever.

Today’s unstable environment is driven by four major factors:

1. Nuclear South Asia is internationalizing its long-standing mutual

conflict (i.e., Kashmir). The conflict is still alive and simmering,
continuously disrupting regional peace. It has been a factor in
India-Pakistan wars (1948, 1965, and 1999), and it remains a
potential source of future conflict.

11 Adil Sultan, op. cit., pp. 147–167; Zahir Kazmi, ‘SRBMs, Deterrence and
Regional Stability in South Asia: A Case Study of NASR and Prahaar’, Regional
Studies, Vol. 30, No. 4, Autumn 2012, pp. 60-101.
12 Mansoor Ahmed, ‘Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Their Impact on

Stability’, in Ashley Tellis (ed.),

Regional Voices on the Challenges of Nuclear Deterrence Stability in Southern
Asia (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 30 June
2016).
13 Zahir Kazmi, op. cit., p. 69.
PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 83

2. Hybrid warfare in South Asia is a reality. A nonlinear war with

blends of conventional, irregular, and cyber components make it
more discreet, with greater deception and denial possibilities.

3. The security trilateral (China, India, Pakistan) and India’s

perception of a two-front war scenario put the asymmetric force
postures (of India and Pakistan) under constant stress, thus
pushing the deterrence stability towards the abyss.

4. Pakistan-China strategic relations can encourage Pakistan to

speculate about China’s role in any future India-Pakistan war.
China’s reluctance to overtly support Pakistan in past Indo-Pak
conflicts may not be the case today because of its physical presence
now in Pakistan and the direct stakes involved through CPEC.
However, China’s economic interdependence with India and its
policy of non-partisanship in any bilateral conflict is a caution for
Pakistan.

Pakistan’s Army Doctrine: Comprehensive Response (2011)

In response to India’s proactive military operations strategy commonly

dubbed Cold Start, Pakistan revamped its conventional war plans to
align them with a nuclear deterrent strategy under New Army Doctrine
2011.14 Pakistan’s conventional strategy is Comprehensive Response as
practised in four major military exercises under the Azm-e-Nau series
near Sialkot, Cholistan, and Sindh (key areas for possible war with
India). Assuming that India will ‘bite and hold’ an area of Pakistani
territory, the exercises’ objective was to recover the lost territory using an
anti-tank battalion with dispersal tactics.15 Taking advantage of its linear
geography with minimum strategic depth, Pakistan would first mobilize
its forces within 24 to 48 hours based on intelligence sources and aim to
make considerable advances inside Indian territory or across the LoC
before India fully operationalizes the air-land battle concept. Pakistan
calculates, with some apprehension, that once India uses massive air
strikes followed by ground operations, Pakistan’s response options would
be minimized. Therefore, Pakistan would aim to take the battle into its
enemy’s territory before the Indian military advances with offensive
operational plans. Pakistan’s strike corps at Mangla (Army Reserve
North) would provide necessary offensive support to nearly four counter-

14 See Pakistan Army Doctrine 2011: Comprehensive Response, Pakistan Army,

2011.
15 ‘AAJ TV News (Archive): Military Exercise Azm-e-Nau-3 Enters Second Day,’

11 April 2010, http://aaj.tv/2010/04/military-exercise-azm-e-nau-3-enters-

second-day/, accessed on 15 February 2018.
84 PAKISTAN HORIZON

IBGs (division-sized battle groups) to fight against Indian Integrated

Battle Groups (IBGs), if the need arises.

Full-spectrum deterrence

As a solution to the widening asymmetries in conventional war-fighting

capabilities with India, Pakistan opted to gel together its conventional
and nuclear deterrence and claimed to have achieved ‘strategic
equivalence’ with India. Pakistan Army Doctrine: Comprehensive
Response (2011) says that strategic equivalence16 ‘has obviated the
conventional war; it has concentrated the action in the sub-conventional
domain.’17 Because of geographical proximity between two nuclear rivals,
the levels of war are commonly described as sub-tactical, tactical,
operational, and strategic (Figure 1). These levels may overlap and are
not clearly differentiated in the doctrine. Sub-tactical appears to be the
conventional war fighting domain, and the tactical level is when full-
blown conventional war has all chances to move into a limited nuclear
exchange. The sub-tactical level may not be completely devoid of the
nuclear element. It may also involve operations at the individual level
with task-oriented missions. The limited nuclear use may involve nuclear
artillery shells for possible deployment, that Pakistan is believed to be
working on. The operational and strategic levels can be construed in
terms of high yield nuclear weapons and medium to long-range delivery
systems. The possible employment could be a last resort option in case of
total degradation of conventional forces or retaliatory strikes including
both counter-force and counter-value targets. The fear of pre-emption
exists in case of credible threat of a decapitating strike against Pakistan’s
nuclear installations and/or command and control centre.

Figure 1: Plugging the Gaps as Defined in Full-Spectrum Deterrence

16 Strategic Equivalence is generally significant between players with

asymmetric power balancing, which may hold true in the case of India and
Pakistan.
17 Pakistan’s Army Doctrine, op. cit., p. 2.
PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 85

Pakistan’s Strategic Plans Division was under the guidance of Lt.

General Khalid Ahmad Kidwai (from its inception to December 2013),
who remained influential in guiding operational and strategic planning.
Pakistan’s strategic thinking has largely been shaped by artillery
principles as Kidwai was trained as an artillery officer in the army. The
dictum of plugging the gap reiterates Pakistan’s strategy of full-spectrum
deterrence and may elucidate the rationale of diversifying delivery
systems.

NASR (with a range of 60 km) is conceived to be tactical. Abdali-I

(supersonic with a range of 150–190 km) and Abdali II18 (ballistic missile
with 180–200 km range) tested in 2011 and 201319 are operational. The
system carries warheads with manoeuvrability options and also provides
operational-level capability to Pakistan’s Strategic Forces.20 Babur (Land
Attack Cruise Missile with 700 km range) is operational; Shaheen III
(ballistic missile with 2750 km range) and Ababeel (MIRV with 2200 km
range) are so far considered part of the strategic level. Shaheen III
provides full coverage of Indian territory, including the ‘Nicobar, and the
Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, potentially as strategic bases.’21

The concept of full-spectrum deterrence is fluid and deliberately kept

vague, and the technological ends and strategic force goals are left open-
ended. Western analysts believe that Pakistan’s full-spectrum deterrence
lies between tactical nuclear weapons (60 km) and Shaheen III (2750
km).22 However, at this moment, there is some elasticity to expand its
delivery systems in support of graduated response. ‘Pakistan follows a
policy of ambiguity, and ambiguity in a very well deliberated, and well
thought out manner.’23 This ambiguity is, therefore, central to Pakistan’s
nuclear policy, doctrine, and posture.

Pakistan’s deterrent is so far India-centric, and the components of

credibility and minimalism are subject to change in response to
increasing Indian force capabilities. For this reason, Pakistani officials
believe that ‘deterrence requirements are dynamic and a precise number

18 ISPR Press Release No PR94/2011-ISPR, 19 April 2011.

19 ISPR Press Release No PR17/2013-ISPR, 11 February 2013.
20 ISPR Press Release No PR20/2013-ISPR, 15 February 2013.
21 ‘A Conversation with Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai’ (Transcript), Carnegie
International Nuclear Policy Conference 2015, 23 March 2015, at
http://carnegieendowment.org/files/03-230315carnegieKIDWAI.pdf, p. 10.
22 Toby Dalton and Michael Krepon, A Normal Nuclear Pakistan (Washington
D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace & Stimson Center:
Washington, 2015), p. 7.
23 ‘A Conversation with Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai’ (Transcript), op cit., p. 13.
86 PAKISTAN HORIZON

of nuclear weapons to satisfy this requirement cannot be quantified.’24

Little is known in public about strategic force goals or the number of
warheads Pakistan has at the moment. In the absence of official
confirmation, there are varying estimates on the warhead count and on
Pakistan’s fissile material stocks.25 It is conceivable that Pakistan has not
declared its doctrine and perhaps will never do so in the foreseeable
future because its posture and doctrine react to India’s force
modernization. Pakistan is still working on its naval leg of the strategic
triad, which is another milestone of full-spectrum deterrence.

The concept of full-spectrum deterrence involves the following key

assumptions:

1. India-centric policy and posture.

2. Aim of seeking strategic equivalence vis-à-vis India and deterring

threats ranging from sub-conventional to strategic levels.

3. Reactive force posture.

4. Reserved credible First-Use option. The development of tactical

nuclear weapons was intended to reaffirm this policy. Although
Pakistan regards nuclear weapons as ‘weapons of last resort,’ it
reserves the option of First Use against a nuclear weapon state
and can employ its weapons in extremis.

5. Deterrence of all forms of aggression through the combination of

conventional and strategic forces (full spectrum).

24 Memorandum from Air Commodore Khalid Kanuri received by CRS analyst, 4

December 2011, quoted in Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons, p. 11.
25 One opinion is that Pakistan is creating more fissile material at a faster pace

than India to develop more nuclear weapons before it enters into the Fissile
Materials Cut-Off Treaty. For details, see Toby Dalton and Michael Krepon,
Normal Nuclear Pakistan, op cit.; Pervez Hoodbhoy and Zia Mian, ‘Changing
Nuclear Thinking in Pakistan’, APLN & CNND, Policy Brief No. 9, February
2014. The other view is exactly the opposite, saying that Pakistan’s posture is
based on minimalism from inherent constraints faced in terms of fissile
material and economic instability. This view is congruent to Pakistan’s official
position that Pakistan is not on a growing trajectory in terms of nuclear
arsenals. For details, see Mansoor Ahmed quoted in ‘Report: Pakistan’s
Nuclear Arsenal Could Become the World’s Third-Biggest’, The Washington
Post, 27 August 2015; Naeem Salik, ‘Pakistan’s Nuclear Force Posture in 2025’,
http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/06/30/pakistan-s-nuclear-force-structure-
in-2025-pub-63912; ‘The Pakistan Nuclear Nightmare’, The New York Times, 7
November 2015.
PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 87

The emerging force posture is moving towards counter-force targeting.

India’s huge landmass is its natural strategic advantage, thus compelling
Pakistan to diversify its warheads and delivery systems and ‘build
credible deterrence at the operational and tactical levels...’26 In this way,
Pakistan is reinforcing its force posture with more nuclear weapons
options, calling it plugging the gaps (Figure 1).27 Should conventional war
be thrust on Pakistan, its response would likely escalate under its
ambiguous nuclear thresholds and diverse force capabilities. Presuming
that war could slip from limited conflict to an all-out nuclear domain,
deterrence could deny India any opportunity to initiate the war, thus
‘stopping Indian aggression before it happens. It is not starting a war. It
is for deterrence.’28

Pakistani officials reiterate that full-spectrum deterrence adheres to

the principle of minimalism. Apparently, the notion of open-ended
capability requirements of deterrence is paradoxical; however, the
minimalism derives from inherent constraints. These include, first,
economic instability, which poses limitations on diverting resources from
the civil sector to defence expenditures. Given economic constraints,
Pakistan cannot assemble a massive armament, yet will continue to
pursue all possible measures to maintain its deterrence as effective and
credible.29 Currently, Pakistan’s defence expenditure is 7.8 billion US
dollars compared to India’s 40.07 billion US dollars. India’s current
economic volume spent on defence is 1.8 per cent of gross domestic
product (GDP), whereas Pakistan spends 2.3 per cent of its much smaller
GDP.30 When predicting future trends based on the current trajectory of
the statistics, it seems improbable for the foreseeable future that
Pakistan would increase its defence spending in an attempt to compete
with India in strategic modernization. Thus, the policy of minimalism
arises out of domestic compulsions. To overcome the conventional
asymmetry that is currently widening and budgetary constraints at hand,
Pakistan aims to develop quick fixes to deterrence stability in a cost-
effective manner. 31

26 Adil Sultan, ‘Pakistan’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Impact of Drivers and

Technology on Nuclear Doctrine,’ op.cit., p. 160.
27 ‘A Conversation with Lt. Gen. Khalid Kidwai’ (Transcript), op cit., pp. 8-9.
28 ‘Tactical N-Arms to Ward off War Threat, Says FO’, Dawn, 20 October 2015.
29 Ibid.
30 Wasim Iqbal, ‘Defence Budget: Indian Allocation Soars to $40.07 Billion

Compared to Pakistan’s $7.8 Billion’, Business Recorder (Karachi), 5 March

2016, https://fp.brecorder.com/2016/03/2016030522682/, accessed on 12 January
2018.
31 Pakistan’s New Army Doctrine, p. 2.
88 PAKISTAN HORIZON

A second determinant of minimalism is fissile material limitations.

Developing a variety of warheads and delivery systems to fulfil the
requisites of full-spectrum deterrence across the strategic triad demands
more fissile material. Each missile system has a different range and
payload, which would require different warhead designs of various yields,
according to analysts.32 Moreover, by developing MIRVs, Pakistan has
increased its appetite for more warheads.33

A third factor involves technological and engineering issues. To keep

up with the technological pace of Indian strategic modernization,
Pakistan would likely need cooperation from an external source. In the
past, Pakistan has sought assistance from China.34 It is not known how
much indigenous capacity building is available to devise new systems.
Moreover, China’s assistance to Pakistan has limitations after its entry
into the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). For instance, for
acquiring better counter-force targeting capabilities, Pakistan’s ballistic
missiles would require satellite and advanced Intelligence Surveillance
and Reconnaissance (IRS) technologies, which are in rudimentary stages.

ASR in Full-Spectrum Force Posture: An escalation dominance

perspective

Many scholars have challenged the operational effectiveness on the

ground of Pakistan’s battlefield nuclear weapon as well as discussing the
command and control dilemmas associated with short-range systems.
Pakistani officials believed that the efficacy of NASR, if hypothetically
calculated against Indian land invasion, has a limited deterrent effect.
For instance, if one 10-kt tactical nuclear weapon is used at low air burst
against a moving Indian combat command with combat groups
(armoured) covering a frontage of 20 to 25 km, it is likely to kill 20 to 25
military personnel with nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC)
protection and destroy eight to ten armored fighting vehicles. This result
may halt the operation for six to eight hours until the reserve combat
group can resume the operation.35

32 Mansoor Ahmed, op.cit., p. 166.

33 Ibid, p. 170.
34 ‘Pakistan Received Chinese Nuclear-Weapon Assistance, Khan Letter Asserts’,

24 September 2009, at http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/pakistan-received-

chinese-nuclear-weapon-assistance-khan-letter-asserts/; Also see Harold A.
Feiveson, Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian, Frank N. von Hippel, Unmaking the
Bomb: A Fissile Material Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and
Nonproliferation (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2014), p. 8.
35 Author’s interview with Indian Army Brig. (Retd.) Gurmeet Kanwal in

Washington D.C. on 11 April 2016.

PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 89

India is apparently less deterred and thinking to mobilize its strike

corps to reach deep inside Pakistan after the initial stall of forces with
tactical nuclear use. On the contrary, Pakistani officials claim that NASR
has successfully deterred India from waging conventional war against
Pakistan. The evidence to this argument is the 2008 Mumbai crisis in
which India could not bring its forces to the border. The hypothetical
scenario suggests that firing a couple of tactical nukes as a demonstration
shot on its own soil in a desert area against Indian forces would serve the
psychological end of deterrence.36 The use of a low-yield weapon would
communicate that the war was slipping into the strategic domain and
generate fear of compound escalation.

Looking through the prism of escalation dominance (ED), it is

generally believed that a relatively stronger adversary in a conflict
possesses ED to prevail until the end; however, the fact that even a
weaker state can have ED in a different proportion to its relative power
has been largely ignored.37 ED is defined as ‘a condition in which a
combatant has the ability to escalate a conflict in ways that will be
disadvantageous or costly to the adversary while the adversary cannot do
the same in return, either because it has no escalation options or because
the available options would not improve the adversary’s situation.’38 High
stakes, greater vulnerability, and limited options can inspire desperate
measures such as the use of proxies. In a nuclear conflict dyad, the threat
matrix can be more complex when response options are minimized.
According to Herman Kahn, the role of nuclear weapons in the escalation
ladder can be different at various stages, particularly if a conflict spirals
from a non-violent act.39 The threat of escalation is a powerful tool to
deter the adversary, and if the adversary is deterred, it helps to
determine on which side the ED rests. A combination of measures can
effectively deter an adversary.

36 Scott D. Sagan, ‘Evolution of Pakistani and Indian Nuclear Doctrine’, in Scott

D. Sagan (ed.), Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2009), p. 234.
37 Russian expert Dimitri Simes quoted in ‘How to Manage Putin: Russia’s

Escalation Dominance’, 5 February 2015, available at

http://breakingdefense.com/2015/02/how-to-manage-putin-russias-escalation-
dominance/, accessed on 10 January 2018.
38 Forest E. Morgan et al., Dangerous Thresholds: Managing Escalation in the 21st

Century (Santa Monica: Rand Corporation, 2008), p. 15.

39 Kerry M. Kartchner and Michael S. Gerson, ‘Escalation to the Limited Nuclear

War in the 21st Century,’ in Jeffrey Larsen and Kerry Kartchner (eds.), On
Limited Nuclear War in the 21st Century (Stanford: Stanford University Press,
2014), p. 148.
90 PAKISTAN HORIZON

ED may rest at two different rungs of the conflict ladder. The lowest
rung is sub-conventional war trends in hybrid warfare. This option rests
with both India and Pakistan and has been used by both countries, often
leading to crisis instability. Any terror incident is likely to be the
triggering event as witnessed in 2001-2, leading to a military standoff,
the 2008 Mumbai and Uri attacks in 2016. After the triggering event,
there is a pause in the conflict for hours before it turns into a crisis
situation. The past military crises revealed that both countries restrained
from escalating the crisis. Former Indian prime minister, Vajpayee, after
the 2002 crisis wrote a letter to the then US president Bush, stating that
India’s patience is running out and another terror attack on Indian soil
will be met with appropriate response from India.40

In case any future crisis fails to de-escalate and slips into hot war,
there are two stages the war would look like: the
limited/localized/conventional war or major conventional war. The limited
war would be no less different from the past, except that India is more
encouraged to the surgical strikes option as opted after the Uri attacks.41
Escalation will mount on how Pakistani military planners react to India’s
surgical strikes before India could fully mobilize its integrated battlefield
groups under a proactive operations strategy and bring them close to the
international border or Line of Control. This is the second rung of the
escalation ladder where nuclear weapons’ tactical role could come into
play. Pakistan’s options are not confined to tactical nuclear weapons. It
could also employ atomic shells by the self-propelled artillery units. A
low-yield nuclear weapon in such an environment would serve the
strategic purpose for Pakistan. An ambiguous threshold would deter
India from massive military response.

Despite knowing the battlefield effectiveness of NASR against moving

armoured vehicles, Pakistani officials are convinced that it serves the
deterrence purposes. It can be assumed that the perceived role of tactical
nuclear weapons for Pakistani military planners is to deter India with a
limited use of nuclear weapons without provoking India’s massive
retaliatory response. Pakistan may use NASR on its soil at the initial
stages of a conventional war to seek ED. The aim could be to scale up the
war by breaking the nuclear taboo yet remain short of causing so many

40 Aziz Haniffa, ‘India running out of patience, Vajpayee told Bush’, Rediff, 25
May 2002,
http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/may/25abv.htm, accessed on 10 January
2018.
41 M. Ilyas Khan, ‘India's “surgical strikes” in Kashmir: Truth or illusion?’, BBC
News, 23 October 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-37702790,
accessed on 12 January 2018.
PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 91

casualties that India would feel justified in responding strategically.

Because Pakistan’s nuclear redlines are ambiguous, using NASR before
its command and control centres are targeted with a possible breakdown
of signals would, in some sense, be considered convenient. Also, the use of
NASR, under partial-predelegation with forward deployment, would
intensify the escalation costs and compel the reluctant international
community to intervene and cease hostilities. In this way, the tactical
nuclear weapons would involve international diplomatic intervention to
prevent further escalation in the conflict.42 The full-spectrum strategy
under the expected conflict continuum with the use of tactical nuclear
weapons is illustrated in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Full-Spectrum Strategy under Expected Conflict Continuum

with Use of Tactical Nuclear Weapons

According to Toby Dalton and George Perkovich, Pakistan ‘by

threatening use of nuclear weapons in response to effective Indian
conventional military operations, and by accepting a greater risk of
escalation accordingly, has apparently prevented India from dominating

42 Feroz H. Khan, ‘Going Tactical: Pakistan’s Nuclear Posture and Implications

for Stability,’ Proliferation Papers 53 (Paris: IFRI Security Studies Center,
September 2015) p. 29.
92 PAKISTAN HORIZON

the escalation ladder in South Asia.’43 In the fog of war with ‘deliberate
ambiguity,’ Pakistan has more freedom in its choices on how to prevail
over India in a bilateral conflict, that is, by deciding on which action to
take, at which rung of the escalation ladder, whether on its soil or across
the LoC, and at what level of escalation. At this stage, it is hard to
conclusively determine if NASR is part of Pakistan’s deterrence strategy
or a de-escalation or war termination guide. However, it does suggest
that Pakistan’s strategy of risk induction through escalation is basically
conflict prevention to ‘deny India the space for launching any kind of
aggression against Pakistan.’44 Peter R. Lavoy observes that:

…the close connection of conventional military force and nuclear

force in Pakistan’s deterrence strategy is the realisation that
escalation dominance at all rungs of the military ladder — from
low-intensity conflict to conventional war and all the way to
nuclear war — is deemed absolutely essential for the weaker
power to survive. Pakistani defence planners firmly believe that if
they allow India to seize the advantage at any level of violence —
from sub-conventional through conventional to nuclear warfare —
then India is sure to exploit it, and all will be lost.45

On the other hand, what remains challenging for India is to determine

the pre-nuclear phase of deterrence and to predict how long this phase
would last from Pakistan’s side. If such a scenario builds up, the decision
to use nuclear weapons first offers a tough call for Pakistani decision
makers.

Conclusion

The literature on nuclear deterrence and military strategies can guide

new nuclear weapon states in the evolution of their nuclear doctrines and
operational war plans. Pakistan’s full-spectrum deterrence blends the US
concept of full-spectrum dominance with the Russian strategy (i.e.,
escalate to de-escalate). It does not fit completely into either of the two

43 Toby Dalton and George Perkovich, ‘India’s Nuclear Options and Escalation
Dominance,’ in George Perkovich (eds.), Not War, Not Peace: Motivating
Pakistan to Prevent Cross Border Terrorism (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2016), p. 17.
44 Paul K. Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons, CRS Report

for Congress, RL34248

1 August 2016, p. 10.
45 Peter R. Lavoy, ‘Islamabad’s Nuclear Posture: Its Premises and
Implementation,’ in Henry D. Sokolski (ed.), Pakistan's Nuclear Future:
Worries Beyond War (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 2008), pp. 133
and 134.
PAKISTAN’S EVOLVING DOCTRINE AND FORCE POSTURE 93

military strategies but carries bits and chunks to chalk out an

independent war prevention- cum- deterrence strategy. The literature on
ED suggests that relatively powerful states can prevail by using ED in a
conflict. However, it is contested that even a small nuclear weapon state
with relatively high stakes and few options can successfully use ED in its
favour. For Pakistan, combining its conventional and strategic war plans
to secure war prevention is a viable option. To prevail in the conflict, the
tactical nuclear weapon serves a two-fold purpose for Pakistan: first, to
increase the scale of violence in the conflict continuum and then to seek
termination by involving the international community; and second, to
enhance Pakistan’s resolve to maintain the first-use option. No military
strategy is perfect and devoid of gaps. Deterrence is a psychological mind
game that is difficult to calibrate. There is over-reliance on nuclear
deterrence by both India and Pakistan. India has adopted a strategy to
fight and punish its nuclear neighbour, whereas Pakistan believes that
deterrence involving the threat or actual use of nuclear weapons is more
robust in a risk-prone nuclear environment.