25 Years of Kargil

Pravin Sawhney

On the 25th anniversary of the Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan, the question to ask is, did India’s military leadership learn the correct lessons? A good way to approach this subject is to go back to the primary source: the then Indian chief of army staff, General V.P. Malik’s book titled Kargil: From Surprise to Victory.

According to Malik, “Kargil was a limited conventional war under the nuclear shadow where space below the threshold was available, but it had to be exploited carefully.” The general raises three doctrinal issues.

One, Kargil was a limited conventional war;

Two, space for conventional war was available below the threshold nuclear war; and

Three, since the available space was not defined by either side (it would vary from sector to sector on the 776 kilometre Line of Control and the international border), both sides would need to be careful to not cross the other’s red line for use of nuclear weapons.

Interestingly, these assumptions were accepted as doctrinal truism against both adversaries (Pakistan and China) and were not war-gamed by subsequent military leaders. Therefore, the present concept of building ‘integrated theatre commands’ under the chief of defence staff aims to integrate the army, air force and the navy for joint operations under a limited war.

War doctrines are dynamic; they should evolve with the science (infusion of technologies) and art (concepts to optimise infused technologies) of war. This is what generalship is all about. Ironically, Malik’s doctrinal thinking should have been rejected right when it was articulated since it was fundamentally flawed.

Let’s start with his first assumption on Kargil being a limited war. Now, there is a big difference between war, conflict and grey zone operations. War is when both or all sides bring their full military might to the battlespace to accomplish what was not possible by negotiations. On the other hand, a conflict is when full military might not be brought on the battlespace, and grey zone operations refers to all activities and violence below the threshold of the use of firearms. It becomes clear that conflict is a gamble with firearms, where one or both sides believe, for reasons, that an escalation to war will not happen. All conflicts are aberrations, and hence doctrines for war cannot be built on them.

Indian Army soldiers after capturing a hill during the Kargil conflict

Thus, Kargil was a conflict since Pakistan brought minimal regular military in the battlespace that gave India the option to use its military assets unconventionally. Pakistan, under General Pervez Musharraf injected five battalions of its then paramilitary, the Northern Light Infantry (NLI), a brigade worth of regular troops to provide covering fire, and Mujahids in the conflict. The Pakistan Air Force, the Pakistan Navy and most of the Pakistan Army were not even in the information loop of the General headquarters (GHQ) to maintain secrecy. Only four headquarters, namely, GHQ, Rawalpindi corps headquarters, Force Command Northern Area (responsible for Siachen), and ISI headquarters were to execute the operation.

On the Indian side, all three services were involved in the operation. The Indian Army operation was called Operation Vijay, the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) was named Operation Safed Sagar, while the Indian Navy, which was on war alert, called its activities Operation Talwar. Under Operation Vijay, five infantry divisions and 100 artillery guns (many used in a direct firing role as enemy air defence and air force was not active) were inducted in the battlespace, while the holding or pivot corps were ordered to be on high alert. Malik gambled in assembling 100 artillery guns since they were pulled out from strike corps denuding them of firepower. This showed the poor level of war preparedness and nervousness of the army leadership to reclaim territory occupied by Mujahids at the earliest. At the beginning of the conflict when tactical intelligence on the enemy was unavailable, the army leadership, in panic, ordered units to climb heights to clear Mujahids occupying them. Of the 545 soldiers’ lives lost during the conflict, maximum casualties were in this phase. Then, there was acute shortage of war withal (ammunitions, spares and so on) at the height of the conflict in June 1999 with Malik publicly telling the media that “we will fight with whatever we have.” This showed poor generalship since it is well known that given General headquarters Rawalpindi’s major advantage of it alone deciding on when and where to start the war with India, the Indian military should be always prepared for war.

To dwell further on Malik’s limited war concept, it cannot become a doctrine since all wars are different. On the one hand, a war between peer military competitors (India and Pakistan), and between unequal military powers (India and China) will not be the same. Even between India and Pakistan, a war depends on each sides’ war aims, preparedness for war, comparative advantages at strategic and operational levels of war and generalship. For this reason, professional militaries test doctrines and war concepts by a mix of simulations, war games and realistic exercises with troops. While this has never been done to put Malik’s assumption to real test, the present military leadership is building integrated theatre commands on another wrong assumption that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Pakistan military war concepts being similar will allow switching of Indian formations from one theatre to