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Abstract
The Kargil conflict can be categorized as a ‘limited war’. It was initiated by Pakistan to achieve mixed military and political objectives, but made important misjudgments that doomed the enterprise to failure. The questions discussed in this article are: why was India surprised; why did both countries observe such great restraint; did the Kargil conflict have a nuclear dimension; and is ‘limited war’ a viable concept with nuclear deterrence obtaining in South Asia. It also argues that the Kargil conflict was an exception, in some dimensions, to the ‘stability-instability paradox’.
Notes
1. This and further references to Clausewitz's thinking, expressed in his monumental On War, are derived from Roger Parkinson, Clausewitz: A Biography, Stein and Day, New York, 1971, pp. 310–315.
2. Robert Endicott Osgood, Limited War: The Challenge to American Strategy, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1957, pp. 1–2.
3. For a discussion of Pakistan's calculations and its choice of the Kargil sector see Maj. Gen. Ashok Krishna and P.R. Chari (eds.), Kargil: The Tables Turned, Manohar, New Delhi, 2001, pp. 14–16.
4. Maj. Gen. Ashok Krishna and P.R.Chari, n. 3, pp. 18–19.
5. From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Committee Report, Sage Publications, New Delhi, 2000, p. 148.
6. From Surprise to Reckoning, n. 5, p. 160.
7. P.R. Chari, Pervaiz Iqbal Cheema, and Stephen P. Cohen (eds.), Four Crises and a Peace Process: American Engagement in South Asia, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2007, pp. 139–141.
8. Celia. W. Dugger, ‘Atmosphere is Tense as India and Pakistan Agree to Talks’, New York Times, June 1, 1999.
9. Raj Chengappa, Weapons of Peace, Harper Collins, New Delhi, 2000, p. 437. The author had privileged access to high officials in the Indian nuclear and missile establishments; hence his account is of significance.
10. Bruce Riedel, American Diplomacy and the 1999 Kargil Summit at Blair House, Policy Paper Series 2002, University of Pennsylvania, Center for Advanced Study of India, 2002.
11. Praveen Swami, ‘General Padmanabhan Mulls Lessons of Operation Parakram’, The Hindu, February 6, 2006.
12. Henry A. Kissinger, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, 1969, p. 140.