Oh ! Let me see you can keep this smile going after reading this . Please note we already inflicting damage to your economy. .Now take a deep breath and read it ...
Pakistan has embarked upon a wasteful militarisation programme that could wreck its economy because of the fear of India. According to Wikileaks, more than the al-Qaida, more than American plans to seize its nuclear stockpile, or even a hostile Afghan government, what’s causing jitters among Pakistani generals is Cold Start – a new version of blitzkrieg being perfected by the Indian Army.
India and Pakistan have fought wars in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999. Each of these conflicts was launched by the Pakistani military with the knowledge that if its military thrusts failed, its patrons – the US and China – could be relied upon to work the diplomatic back channels, get the world media to raise the alarm, and issue veiled threats, thereby bringing pressure upon India’s political leadership to call off its attack.
India’s military strategy was different. After the defending corps along the border soften Pakistan’s frontal positions, the mechanised columns of India’s elite strike corps roll across the border, destroy the core of the Pakistan Army and slice the country in two, giving the political leadership a huge bargaining advantage.
Sounds like a bullet-proof strategy. But because India’s strike corps were based in central India, a significant distance from the international border, it took up to three weeks for these three armies – comprising hundreds of thousands of troops – to reach the front.
Because of the long mobilisation period, the intervention by Western nations and the truce-happy nature of its political leadership, India’s military brass could not use its strike forces to their full potential.
Quick strikes
Cold Start was designed to run around this logistical Maginot Line. The doctrine reorganises the Indian Army’s offensive power away from the three large strike corps into eight smaller division-sized battle groups that combine mechanised infantry, artillery, and armour in a manner reminiscent of the Soviet Union’s operational maneuver groups. According to Dr Subhash Kapila, an international relations and strategic affairs analyst at the New Delhi-based South Asia Analysis Group, Cold Start aims to seize the initiative and finish the war before India’s political leadership loses its nerve.
“The long mobilisation time gives the political leadership time to waver under pressure, and in the process deny the Indian Army its due military victories,” says Kapila. “The new war doctrine would compel the political leadership to give political approval ‘ab-initio’ and thereby free the armed forces to generate their full combat potential from the outset.”
The crux of Cold Start is:
Pakistan must not enjoy the luxury of time. Cold Start aims for eight “Battle Groups”, comprising independent armoured and mechanised brigades that would launch counterattacks within hours.
These Battle Groups will be fully integrated with the Indian Air Force and naval aviation, and launch multiple strikes round the clock into Pakistan.
Each Battle Group will be the size of a division (30,000-50,000 troops) and highly mobile unlike the strike corps.
Ominously for Pakistan, the Battle Groups will be well forward from existing garrisons. India’s elite strike forces will no longer sit idle waiting for the opportune moment, which never came in the last wars.
In a Harvard paper on Cold Start, Walter C. Ladwig writes, “As the Indian military enhances its ability to implement Cold Start, it is simultaneously degrading the chance that diplomacy could diffuse a crisis on the subcontinent. In a future emergency, the international community may find the Battle Groups on the road to Lahore before anyone in Washington, Brussels or Beijing has the chance to act.”
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Cold Start is also aimed at paralysing Pakistani response. Although its operational details remain classified, it appears that the goal would be to have three to five Battle Groups entering Pakistani territory within 72 to 96 hours from the time the order to mobilise is issued.
“Only such simultaneity of operations will unhinge the enemy, break his cohesion, and paralyse him into making mistakes from which he will not be able to recover,” writes Gurmeet Kanwal, director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.
Agrees Ladwig: “Multiple divisions operating independently have the potential to disrupt or incapacitate the Pakistani leadership's decision making cycle, as happened to the French high command in the face of the German blitzkrieg of 1940.”
Also, rather than seek to deliver a catastrophic blow to Pakistan (i.e., cutting the country in two), the goal of Indian military operations would be to make shallow territorial gains, 50-80 km deep, that could be used in post-conflict negotiations to extract concessions from Islamabad.
Where the strike corps had the power to deliver a knockout blow, the Battle Groups can only “bite and hold” territory. This denies Pakistan the “regime survival” justification for employing nuclear weapons in response to India's conventional attack.
it is Pakistan that will have to deal with the consequences. American strategic analyst, Ralph Peters, the author of Looking for Trouble, says: “Let India deal with Pakistan. Pakistan would have to behave responsibly at last. Or face nuclear-armed India. And Pakistan's leaders know full well that a nuclear exchange would leave their country a wasteland. India would dust itself off and move on.”
Why 100km, when you already have Prahaar missile?
It's lot more cheaper and can be fired in solvo mode upto 12 rockets in just 40 seconds . But we will also use prahaar for sure !!!!
