Bengaluru: The past year-and-a-half since General Upendra Dwivedi took over as chief of staff has seen the Indian Army tweak its war strategy to counter nuclear challenges posed by both Pakistan and China.
Nuclear conflict is in the domain of the Strategic Forces Command (SFC), but the Army has conducted closed-door wargaming at specific levels too. More changes have been brought in now, however, to take into account the deployment of tactical nukes, change in the strategic posture of adversaries, and choice of dual use targets in case of a conflict.
Responding to a comment by former Strategic Forces Command chief Vice-Admiral SPS Cheema (Retd) on the blurring of lines between conventional and nuclear conflict, the Army chief said he is thankful to the former Navy officer for coming to him a year-and-a-half back. “Since then, in all our wargames, we have been discussing all these issues behind closed doors. Even issues considered taboo earlier are being discussed to build awareness. This is because nuclear conflict is a reality along both our borders.”
“Therefore, it is mandatory to be discussed and it is good that he gave this suggestion to us. We are having those closed-door discussions and looking at offensive and defensive plans daily, and how we are supposed to take action—force preservation, protection and orchestration,” he said at Ran Samwad-2025, a first-of-its-kind tri-service seminar at the Army War College in Madhya Pradesh.
Sources said that earlier wargaming on the nuclear aspect happened at the apex level which is now being done at the Corps Commander-level behind closed doors. “Of course, the Army has always wargamed the possible use of nuclear weapons by the adversary. However, we are now looking at certain other aspects, including the nuclear threshold,” another source explained.
The sources said that the forces have always believed going nuclear to be a political decision, and have strict demarcation between nuclear and conventional tactics. With deployment of tactical nukes and dual use vectors, however, the lines are blurring and the forces need to keep those changes in mind.
Sources explained that Pakistan has recently announced a welter of changes in its posture, delegating a great deal of power to their Army chief, including control of nuclear weapons. “Now the scope within the Army has been widened and all these issues are discussed but still behind closed doors,” a source said.
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‘No separate domain for nukes’
Meanwhile, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan said that India’s nuclear capability will not be considered a separate domain but as part of cognitive war in multi-domain operations (MDO). He was speaking at Ran Samwad on the theme of multi domain operations.
“We don’t consider nuclear weapons as [part of] war fighting, but it’s a deterrent in mind, hence it will be part of the cognitive domain. Nuclear domains as such don’t form a separate domain.”
The CDS also pointed out that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said after Operation Sindoor that India will not be deterred by nuclear blackmail.
At the moment, MDO concept comprises of just six components—land, air, sea, cyber, and space.
(Edited by Nardeep Singh Dahiya)