Indian “Strategic Restraint” Revisited: The Case of the 1965 India-Pakistan War

ABSTRACT

Political scientists and analysts have long argued that Indian strategic restraint is informed primarily by Indian political leaders’ aversion to the use of force. For some scholars, India’s apparent fixation with restraint can be traced to the very foundation of the modern Indian state. This article contests what it considers to be a reductionist position on strategic restraint. Instead, it argues that Indian strategic restraint has in fact been shaped more by structural issues such as the limited availability of logistics and capabilities, the impact of domestic political contest, the effect of international attention to a crisis and the need for international legitimacy, and the political, economic, and military cost-benefit analysis associated with the use of force and the potential for escalation. In sum, it contributes a historically grounded understanding of strategic restraint. The article looks closely at India’s decision-making process in one major experiment with the use of force against Pakistan in 1965. The case clearly shows that political leaders were hardly uncomfortable or unsure about the use of force. It was the military leadership at the time that sought to temper the ambitious and potentially escalatory policies considered by the then prime minister.

Disclosure statement

The author report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Notes

1. Author’s Interview with a Serving Senior Intelligence Official, New Delhi, February 23, 2017.

2. For a review, see: George Tanham, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay (RAND Corporation, 1992), 1–50; George Tanham, “Indian Strategic Culture,” The Washington Quarterly 15, no. 1 (Winter 1992): 129–142; K. Subramanyam, Shedding Shibboleths: India’s Evolving Strategic Outlook (Delhi, India: Wordsmith 2005). For reflections on practitioner views with regard to the utility of force, see: Harsh V. Pant, “Indian Foreign Policy Challenges: Substantive Uncertainties and Institutional Infirmities,” Asian Affairs 40, no. 1 (2009): 90–101; George Perkovich and Toby Dalton, Not War, Not Peace: Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism (New Delhi, India: Oxford University Press, 2016), 1–9; and Nitin A. Gokhale, Securing India the Modi way: Pathankot, Surgical Strikes, and More (New Delhi, India: Bloombury, 2017), 1–22.

3. Sandeep Unnithan, “Why Didn’t India Strike Pakistan After 26/11,” India Today, October 14, 2014, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/why-india-didnt-strike-pakistan-after-26-11/1/498952.html; also see, Perkovich and Dalton, Not War, Not Peace, 3–4.

4. Shiv Shankar Menon, Choices: The Making of India’s Foreign Policy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2016), 62.

5. Perkovich and Dalton, Not War, Not Peace, 3–4.

6. For an explanation of these reasons see Menon, Choices, 62–65, also see: Sunil Khilnani, “Delhi’s Grand Strategy: Time For India to Start Saying Yes,” Newsweek, July 27, 2009.

7. “Full text of Indian Army DGMO Lt. General Ranbir’s Singh’s Press Conference,” Indian Express, September 29, 2016.

8. “Strategic Restraint is Passé: Ram Madhav,” The Hindu, September 19, 2016.

9. Gokhale, Securing India the Modi Way, 1 & 4.

10. Gokhale, Securing India the Modi Way, 1 & 4. For an alternative view on the merits of restraint, see Sameer Lalwani, “The Case for Restraint: Why the Conventional Wisdom is Wrong,” Foreign Affairs, September 25, 2016, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/india/2016-09-25/case-restraint-india.

11. Sunil Dasgupta and Stephen P. Cohen, “Is India Ending its Strategic Restraint Doctrine?” The Washington Quarterly 34, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 163–64. Also, see, Sunil Dasgupta, “The Fate of India’s Strategic Restraint,” Current History 111, no. 744 (April 2012): 129 and Stephen Cohen, The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation (New Delhi, India: Oxford University press, 2001), 104–7. Note: For accounts of strategy where author’s argue that India is simply incapable of making strategy for reasons located in its Hindu heritage (and a pre-conditioned assumption that “Indian’s have a non-linear view of time with no past and no future”) or that unearthing the meaning of strategy requires an epistemological investigation into epics such as the Ramayana, see, George Tanham, Indian Strategic Thought: An Interpretive Essay (RAND Cooperation, 1992) and Swarna Rajagopalan, “Security Ideas in the Valmiki Ramayana,” in Security and South Asia: Ideas, Institutions, and Initiatives, edited by Swarna Rajagopalan (Delhi, India: Routledge, 2006), 27. For a wider discussion regarding cultural determinism and strategy and what scholars call strategic culture, see, Alistair Iain Johnston, Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); Colin Gray, “Strategic Culture as a Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes Back,” Review of International Studies 25 (1999): 49–69; Alistair Iain Johntson, “Strategic Cultures Revisited” Review of International Studies 25 (1999): 519–523; Stuart Poore, “What is the Context? A Reply to the Gray-Johntson Debate on Strategic Culture,” Review of International Studies 29 (2003): 279–284; Colin Gray, “National Style in Strategy: The American Example,” International Security 6, no. 2 (Autumn 1981): 21–47; David Jones, “Soviet Strategic Culture,” in Strategic Power USA/USSR, edited by Carl G Jacobsen (London, UK: Macmillan 1990); Jeffrey Lantis, “The Moral Imperatives of Force: The Evolution of German Strategic Culture in Kosovo,” Comparative Strategy 21, no. 21 (2002): 21–46. For a short note on strategic restraint understood more widely, see, Barry R. Posen, Restraint: A New Foundation for US Grand Strategy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2014), 1–20. For an alternative account in the American context see: G. John Ikenberry, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, and Transformation of the American World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011), 15–27.

12. Stephen Cohen and Sunil Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming: India’s Military Modernisation (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2010), 1.

13. Cohen and Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming, 2 Note: Cohen and Dasgupta argue that the failure to take the initiative has left the strategic state with China (with regard to the border dispute) and Pakistan (with regard to the Kashmir dispute) unchanged.

14. Sunil Khilnani, “India as a Bridging Power,” May 23, 2016, http://kms1.isn.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/23655/…/01_Bridging.pdf.

15. Pant, “Indian Foreign Policy Challenges: Substantive Uncertainties and Institutional Infirmities,” 97, also see, Stephen P. Cohen, “Approaching India’s Military and Security Policy, With a Detour through Disaster Studies,” India Review 7, no. 4 (2008): 295–319.

16. Cohen and Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming, 2.

17. Cohen and Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming, 2.

18. For a note on the same see: Menon, Choices and Arjun Subramaniam, India’s Wars: A Military History 1947–1971 (New Delhi, India: Harper Collins, 2016). For a short work based on interviews and on India’s expeditionary experiences, see, Sushant Singh, Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian Military (New Delhi, India: Juggernaut Press, 2017).

19. For a note on the limitation of capabilities, see, Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India: A Strategic History of the Nehru Years (New Delhi, India: Permanent Black, 2010), 121–46. For a short note on international pressures at the time, see, Paul McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia: Britain, the United States and the Indian Subcontinent 1945–1965 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 9–55.

20. See, Srinath Raghavan, 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh (New Delhi, India: Permanent Black, 2013), 205–64. For a comprehensive account of India’s limited objectives and the rationales around the same based on interviews, see, Richard Sisson and Leo Rose, War and Succession: Pakistan, India, and the Creation of Bangladesh (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1991).

21. Cohen and Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming, xiii.

22. For a short review of the debate between existing accounts and new sources, see, Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India, 101–46.

23. See McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia, 149–216. For official, comprehensive and more general accounts, see, P. B. Sinha and A. A. Athale, History of the Conflict with China, 1962 (New Delhi, India: History Division, Ministry of Defence, 1992); D. K. Palit, War in the High Himalaya: The Indian Army in Crisis, 1962 (London, UK: Hurst, 1991); and John Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2001).

24. For recent accounts, see, Raghavan, 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh and Garry Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger and a Forgotten Genocide (London, UK: Hurst, 2014).

25. Cohen and Dasgupta, Arming without Aiming, 1.

26. A detailed revisionist account of the Nehru years can be found in Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India. Note: A wide selection of Nehru’s correspondences with national and world leaders in times of crisis (till 1961 to date) can be found in the Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, accessible for free and online at http://nehruportal.nic.in/writings.

27. Sumit Ganguly and Paul Kapur, India, Pakistan and the Bomb: Debating Nuclear Stability in South Asia (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2010). For details on India’s retaliation posture and its history see: Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014), 94–120. For a more recent analysis of issues to do with Pakistan’s desire for tactical nuclear weapons see Walter Ladwig, “Indian Military Modernization and Conventional Deterrence in South Asia,” Journal of Strategic Studies. 38, no. 5 (2015): 729–72. Also, see, Evan Braden Montgomery and Eric S. Edelman, “Rethinking Stability in South Asia: India, Pakistan and the Competition for Escalation Dominance,” Journal of Strategic Studies 38, no. 1–2 (2014): 159–82. For a wider discussion about capabilities and doctrine in South Asia, see, Christopher Clary and Vipin Narang, Doctrine, Capabilities and (In)Stability in South Asia, in Michael Kreppon and Julia Thompson, eds., Deterrence Stability and Escalation Control in South Asia (Washington, DC: Stimson Centre, 2013), 93–106, https://www.stimson.org/sites/default/files/file-attachments/Deterrence_Stability_Dec_2013_web_1.pdf.

28. “Story of the First Encounter with Raiders in Poonch,” Information and Broadcasting Ministry (hereafter I & B), National Archives, New Delhi [hereafter NAND] File Number 9/1/65-KP.

29. Altaf Gauhar, Ayub Khan: Pakistan’s First Military Ruler (Lahore, Pakistan: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1993), 312–19.

30. Farooq Bajwa, From Kutch to Tashkent: The Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 (London, UK: Hurst & Company, 2013), 34–38.

31. “Kutch Aggression,” May-July 1965, MEA, PAK I, NAND File No P1/108/146/65.

32. “Note on Pakistani Aggression on Kutch,” MEA, Pak I Registry, NAND File No. PI/108/146/65.

33. Chester Bowles to Dean Rusk, New Delhi, April 24, 1965 (Telegram 2), National Security Files (NSF), Box 129, Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Archives, Austin, Texas [hereafter LBJA] India Vol. 4/12:64–6:65.

34. Chester Bowles to Dean Rusk, New Delhi, April 24, 1965 (Telegram 2).

35. Chester Bowles to Dean Rusk, New Delhi, April 24, 1965 (Telegram 2).

36. Chester Bowles to Dean Rusk, New Delhi, April 24, 1965 (Telegram 2).

37. Bowles to Rusk, New Delhi, April 24, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 4/12:64–6:65.

38. Note: The first outline of an agreement was concluded on May 12. For a background see: McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia, 308–12.

39. Commonwealth Relations Office (CRO) to New Delhi, June 1, 1965, National Archives, Kew Gardens, London, [hereafter NA] DO 196/36.

40. Bajwa, Kutch to Tashkent, 86–93.

41. Cited in: Gauhar Ayub Khan, 312–13. Also, see, Chester Bowles, Promises to Keep: My Years in Public Life, 1941–1969 (New York, NY: Harper and Row, 1971), 501–503.

42. Subramaniam, India’s Wars, 264–68.

43. S. N. Prasad and U. P. Thapliyal, The India-Pakistan War of 1965: A History (New Delhi, India: Natraj Publishers, 2011), 38–39.

44. Bowles to Rusk, New Delhi, April 25, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 4/12:64–6:65.

45. General J. N. Chaudhuri, An Autobiography: As Narrated to B. K. Narayan, 190.

46. McGarr, The Cold War in South Asia, 270–71.

47. Ben Pimlott, Harold Wilson (London, UK: Harper Collins, 1992), 388–95.

48. Note: The Sino-Pakistani relationship had strengthened following the completion of a territorial agreement between the two countries in March 1963. For details see: Andrew Small, “The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics,” (London, UK: Hurst, 2015), 9–26 .

49. Gauhar, Ayub Khan, 318–27.

50. Nitin A. Gokhale, 1965: Turning the Tide, How India Won the War (New Delhi, India: Bloomsbury, 2015), 68–69.

51. US Embassy, New Delhi to Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), August 9, 1965, National Security Files (NSF), Box 129, LBJA India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

52. Naranjan Gill to C. S. Jha, Mexico City, September 2, 1965, MEA, NAND File No. WII/103/2/65 (B).

53. R. D. Pradhan, 1965 War: The Inside Story: Defence Minister Y. B. Chavan’s Diary of India-Pakistan War (New Delhi, : Atlantic, 2013), 7–8.

54. Pradhan, 1965 War, 8.

55. “Pak Intruders Burn Two Schools Near Srinagar,” The Times of India, August 10, 1965.

56. “Two Officers Among 84 Pakistani’s Killed in Kashmir area,” The Times of India, August 11, 1965.

57. “Pindi Rejected Nimmo’s Plea,” The Times of India, August 14, 1965.

58. “Statement on Situation Along Ceasefire Line,” Twelfth Session Vol. XLIV, August 16, 1965, Lok Sabha Debates (3^rd Series), 189–92.

59. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA DEFE 44/102.

60. “Situation in Jammu and Kashmir,” Twelfth Session Vol. XLIV, August 23, 1965, Lok Sabha Debates (3^rd Series), 326–31.

61. General J. N. Chaudhuri, An Autobiography: As Narrated to B. K. Narayan (New Delhi, India: Vikas, 1972), 193.

62. J. Anthony Lukas, “Perils of Big War Grows in Kashmir,” The New York Times, August 31, 1965.

63. Bowles to Rusk, New Delhi, August 28 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

64. “Fighting Alarms Britain,” The New York Times, September 1, 1965.

65. “India Free to Attack Pak Bases,” The Times of India, August 24, 1965.

66. CIA to White House Situation Room (hereafter WHSR), September 1, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

67. Gauhar, Ayub Khan, 327.

68. For details see: Nitin A. Gokhale, 1965: Turning the Tide, How India Won the War (New Delhi, India: Bloomsbury, 2015), 99–100.

69. Embassy New Delhi to DIA, September 2, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

70. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 107.

71. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

72. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

73. CIA to WHSR, September 2, 1965 (1430 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

74. “Pak Troops Cross Line Near Chhamb,” The Times of India, September 2, 1965.

75. Note: There is no evidence of written orders being given to the service chiefs. These objectives were ascertained from minutes of the meeting on September 3, see, Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 94.

76. CIA Intelligence Info Cable, September 6, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

77. Cited in Pradhan, 1965 War, 35.

78. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

79. CIA to WHSR, September 7, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

80. Subramaniam, India’s Wars, 295.

81. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

82. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 131.

83. For details, see, Gokhale, 1965: Turning the Tide, 131–46.

84. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India-Pakistan War, 164–70.

85. [LBJA] CIA to WHSR, September 13,1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

86. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 187–88.

87. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

88. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 241.

89. CIA to WHSR, September 15, 1965 (0400 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

90. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 263.

91. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

92. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 264–265.

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94. CIA to WHSR, 13 September 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

95. CIA to WHSR, 13 September 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

96. CIA to WHSR, 15 September 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

97. CIA to WHSR, 16 September 1965 (1600 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

98. CIA to WHSR, 16 September 1965 (1600 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

99. CIA to WHSR, 16 September 1965 (1600 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

100. CIA to WHSR, 16 September 1965 (1600 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

101. CIA to WHSR, 16 September 1965 (1600 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

102. Pradhan, 1965 War, 126–27.

103. Prasad and Thapliyal, The India Pakistan War of 1965, 312–13.

104. Jacques Nevard, “Pakistan Presses Appeal for US Intervention,” The New York Times, September 18, 1965. Also, see, Gauhar, Ayub Khan, 352–54.

105. “Stop Fighting, Pull Back Troops,” The Times of India, September 11, 1965.

106. CIA to WHSR, September 9, 1965 (1600 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

107. CIA to WHSR, 15 September 1965 (0400 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

108. CIA to WHSR, 17 September 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

109. CIA to WHSR, 22 September 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

110. Shastri to U Thant, New Delhi, September 20, 1965, MEA, Kashmir Unit, NAND, File Number P. V. 152/18/65- Vol. I.

111. “Agreement Between COAS India and CINC Pakistan Army for Disengagement and Withdrawal of Troops in Pursuance of the Tashkent Declaration.” External Affairs, Pakistan II, NAND, File No P (P.IV) 290 (47)/65.

112. “Singapore Back India,” The Times of India, September 11, 1965.

113. Note by Jagat Mehta, October 22, 1965, V. L. Pandit Papers, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, [hereafter NMML] Subject File No 44.

114. CIA to WHSR, September 17, 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

115. CIA to WHSR, September 17, 1965 (1100 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

116. Rusk to Karachi, Washington, DC, September 11, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

117. Rusk to Bowles, Washington, DC, September 6, 1965, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

118. Note, Jagat Mehta, Peking, October 22, 1965, V. L. Pandit Papers, NMML, Subject File No 44.

119. Rusk to Bowles, Washington, DC, September 19, NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

120. The India-Pakistan War 1965, May 1966, NA, DEFE 44/102.

121. CIA to WHSR, September 8, 1965 (1400 hrs), NSF, Box 129, LBJA, India Vol. 5/6:65–9:65.

122. Chaudhuri, An Autobiography, 189.

123. Eliot Cohen, The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power & the Necessity of Military Force (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2016), 164.

124. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1976), 3–5, 409.

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Rudra Chaudhuri

Rudra Chaudhuri is a Senior Lecturer, Department of War Studies and the India Institute, King’s College London, London, UK.